"With the evening we were once more running sharp on a wind up channel;
and when she did get her own way in a good breeze, the schooner's
qualities came out. 'Twas a perfect luxury to look over the side and see
the bubbles pass, her sharp bows sliding through it like a knife, she
eating into the wind all the time, in a way none but a fore-and-aft
clipper could hope to do, with a glassy blue ripple sent back from her
weather-bow as far as the fore-chains; then to wake of a morning and
feel her bounding under you with a roll up to windward, while the water
gushed through and through below the keel, and ran yearning and toppling
away back along the outer timbers into her boiling wake, working with
the moving rudder. And our man-o'-war's-men were quite delighted with
the Young _Hebe_, as they still called her. Snelling was in his element
while we were having the new spars sent up aloft--a set of longer sticks
than before--till she had twice the air, as well as a knowing rake aft.
Next thing was to get the long brass nine-pounder amidships from under
the boat, where the Frenchmen had kept it, besides which we found
another in her hold; so that, added to six small carronades already on
deck, we made a pretty show. Meanwhile, for my own part, I kept cracking
on with every stitch of canvas that could be clapped upon the spars,
including studding-sails. Jones himself didn't know better than I did by
this time how to handle the craft, schooner though she was, in the way
of making her use what weather we had to the best purpose. Variable as
it proved, too, I was aware the Indiamen would have pretty much the same
now as we had; so that, on going aloft with the glass, as I did every
watch in the day, I soon began each time expecting one or other of them
to heave in sight.
"As for the five hands from Cape Town, they seemed to have fallen in
cheerfully enough with our own, and as soon as the fine weather came,
the gang of Lascars were set to duty like the rest. Snelling would have
them even trained to work the guns, although, if it blew at all hard,
not one could be got to go aloft, except their old _serang_ and the
_tindal_, his mate. What surprised me most was the harbour officer
himself at last asking, as Mr Snelling told me, to be put in a watch;
but as the midshipman said there was no doubt Webb had made a voyage or
two before, somewhere or other, I agreed to it at once. 'I'm not sure,
sir,' added the midshipman, with one of his doubtful double looks, 'but
the gentleman may have seen blue water the first time at Government
expense, and not in the service either--he don't look fore and aft
enough, Mr Collins, harbour officer though he be; but, never mind, sir,
I'll see after him!' 'Pooh,' said I, laughing; 'if he does turn to, Mr
Snelling, it shan't be in the watch _you_ have to do with! Hand him over
to Mr Jones.' By this time I had changed the mid into my own watch, and
given Jones charge of the other--so to him the harbour officer went.
"The main character aboard of us, to me at anyrate, was this Jones
himself. The fact was, at first I had my doubts of him altogether,
partly owing to the queer way we got hold of him, partly on account of
his getting the upper hand so much through chance, in the tremendous
weather we had at the outset, till I wasn't sure but it might come into
the fellow's head of itself, to be upon some drift or other that might
cost me trouble, as things stood. However, I no sooner felt where I was,
and got the craft under my own spoke, than I came to set him down for
nothing but one of those strange hands you fall in with at sea
sometimes, always sailing with a 'purser's name,' a regular wonder of a
shipmate, and serving to quote every voyage after, by way of a clincher
on all hard points, not to say an oracle one can't get beyond, and can't
flow sky-high enough. To tell the truth, though, Jones was as thorough a
seaman as ever I met with--never at a loss, never wanting on any hand;
whether it was the little niceties we stood in need of for setting the
schooner's rigging all right again, which none but a blue-water
long-voyage sailor can touch, or, what comes to be still better in
tropical latitudes, a cool head and a quick hold, with full experience
for all sorts of weather, 'twas much the same to him. He was all over
like iron, too, never seeming to stand in need of sleep, and seeing like
a hawk. At any hour I came on deck in his watch, there was Jones, all
awake and ready, till hearing him walk the planks over my head of a fine
night made me at times keep my eyes open, listening to it and the wash
of the water together. I fancied there was something restless in it,
like the sea, with now and then an uneven sort of a start; and at last
it would come to full stop, that gave me the notion of how he was
standing quiet in the same spot; whether he was looking aloft, or
thinking, or leaning over the side, or what he was going to do, troubled
me wonderfully. The only want in his seamanship I noticed, he evidently
wasn't used to handle a large ship; but craft of some kind I was pretty
sure he had commanded in the course of his life. As for taking
observations, he could do it better than I could then, while the
knowledge he had on different heads, that came out by chance, made you
think more of a Cambridge graduate than a common sailor, such as he had
shipped for with us. The strangest part of all about him, though, was
what I couldn't well name, not to this day; 'twas more grained in with
his manner, and the ring of his voice at particular moments, as well as
his walk, though these were the smart seaman's no less; but one couldn't
help thinking of a man that had known the world ashore some time or
other, in a different enough station from now--ay, and in a way to bring
out softer lines in his face than reefing topsails or seeing the
main-tack ridden down would do. The nearest I could come to calling it,
far apart as the two men stood, was to fancy he reminded me of Lord
Frederick Bury himself; especially when he looked all of a sudden to the
horizon in that wide, vacant kind of fashion, as if he expected it
farther off than it was; only Jones's face was twice the age, like a
man's that had had double the passions in it at the outset, and given
them full swing since then; with a sleeping devil in his eye yet,
besides, as I thought, which only wanted somewhat to rouse it. Only for
that, I had a sort of leaning to Jones myself; but, as it was, I caught
myself wishing, over and over, for something to make us fall regularly
foul of each other, and get rid of this confounded doubtful state. One
hitch of a word to take hold of, and, by Jove! I felt all the blood in
my body would boil out in me to find how we stood, and show it; but
nothing of the kind did Jones let pass--and as close as the sea itself
he was in regard to his past life. As for the men from the frigate, at
least, they seemingly looked on him with no great fondness, and a good
deal of respect, in spite of themselves, for his seamanship; whereas, if
he had been left in the fore-peak in place of the cabin, I've no doubt
in a short time it would have been no man but Jones. You light now and
then upon a man afloat, indeed, that his shipmates hold off from, as
healthy dogs do from a mad one; and you saw they had some sort of an
inkling of the gloomy close nature Jones had in him by the way they
obeyed his orders. Webb's three Cape Dutchmen seemed to have a notion he
was some being with mysterious powers, while the Lascars ran crouching
at his very word--some of them being, as I found, Malays, and the rest
Mussulmans from Chittagong; but Jones could send them about in their own
language, Dutchmen and all--a part of the matter which did not tend to
keep me less careful over him. Still I observed, since his coming
aboard, that Jones never once touched liquor, which had plainly enough
been his ruin ashore; whether on account of meaning to pull up once for
all and mend, or only to have a wider bout at next port, or else to keep
himself steady for aught that might turn up, I couldn't settle in my own
mind. Though deucedly doubtful of its being the first, the very idea of
it made one feel for the man; and, in case of his doing well, I had no
small hopes of something in the upshot to save a real sailor like him
from going to the devil altogether, as he seemed doing.
"Now, after our getting clear of the rough Cape weather, and the
dead-lights being taken out of the stern-windows, I had given a look,
for the first time, into the schooner's after-cabins, which were pretty
much as the people she belonged to before had left them, except for the
rough work the gale had played. There were two of them, one opening into
the other; and I must say it was a melancholy sight to meet the bright
sunlight streaming into them from off the water astern, with all the
little matters either just as if the owners were still inside, or else
tumbled about at sixes and sevens. One drawer, in particular, had come
out of a table, scattering what was in it on the deck: there was a
half-open letter, in a woman's hand, all French, and showing a lock of
hair, with a broken diamond cross of the French Legion of Honour,
besides a sort of paper-book full of writing and two printed ones bound
in morocco. I picked up the letter and the cross, put them in again, and
shoved the drawer back to its place, though I brought the books away
with me to have a glance over. What struck me most, though, was a
plaster figure of the French Emperor himself, standing fastened on a
shelf, with one hand in the breast of his greatcoat, and looking calmly
out of the white sightless eyes; while right opposite hung a sort of
curtain which you'd have thought they were fixed upon. When I hauled it
aside, I stared--there on a shelf to match the other, was a beautiful
smiling child's head to the shoulders, of pure white marble, as if it
leant off the bulkhead like a cherub out of the clouds.
"Spite of all, however, the touch of likeness it had to the head I got
such a glimpse of at Longwood, even when the hot sunlight showed it in
my spy-glass so pale and terrible, was sufficient to tell me what _this_
was--Napoleon's own little son, in fact, who was made King of Rome, as I
remembered hearing at the time. The thought of the schooner's strange
French captain and his desperate scheme came back on me so strong,
joined to what I saw he had an eye to in fitting out his cabins, that,
for my own part, I hadn't the heart to use them myself, and at first
sight ordered the dead-lights to be shipped again, and the door locked.
"'Twas a good many days after this, of course, and we had made a pretty
fast run up the Mozambique, in spite of the sharp navigation required,
sighting nothing larger than the native and Arab craft to be seen
thereabouts; we were beginning to clear out from amongst the clusters of
islands and shoals at the channel-head, when two large sail were made in
open water to nor'-eastward. Next morning by daybreak we were to
windward of the weathermost--a fine large Indiaman she was, crowding a
perfect tower of canvas. Shortly after, however, the schooner was within
hail, slipping easily down upon her quarter, which seemed to give them a
little uneasiness, plenty of troops as she seemed to have on board, and
looming like a frigate. After some show of keeping on, and apparently
putting faith in the man-of-war pennant I hoisted, she hove into the
wind, when we found she was the Company's ship _Warringford_, and the
other the something _Castle_, I forget which, both for Calcutta. The
next thing, as soon as they found we were tender to His Majesty's
frigate _Hebe_, was to ask after the _Seringapatam_; on which I was told
she was three or four days' sail ahead with the _Mandarin_, bound to
China, neither of them having put in at Johanna Island to refresh.
"I was just ready to put our helm up again and bid good-bye, when the
tiffin-gong could be heard sounding on the Indiaman's quarter-deck, and
the old white-haired captain politely asked me if I wouldn't come aboard
with one or two of my officers to lunch. Mr Snelling gave me a wistful
glance--there were a dozen pretty faces admiring our schooner out of the
long white awnings; but even if the notion of bringing up Snelling
himself as my first officer hadn't been too much for me, not to speak of
either Jones or Webb, why the very thoughts that everything I saw
recalled to me, made me the more eager to get in sight of the
_Seringapatam_. 'Thank you, sir,' answered I. 'No--I must be off after
the Bombay ship.' 'Ah,' hailed the old captain, 'some of your Admiral's
post-bags, I suppose. Well, keep as much northing as you can, sir, and I
daresay you'll find her parted company. She's got a jury fore-topmast
up, for one she lost a week ago; so you can't mistake her for the
_Mandarin_, with a good glass.' 'Have you noticed any suspicious craft
lately, sir?' asked I. 'Why, to tell you the truth, lieutenant,' sang
out he, looking down off the high bulwarks at our long nine-pounders and
the knot of Lascars, 'none more so than we thought _you_, at first,
sir!' The cadets on the poop roared with laughter, and an old lady with
two daughters seemed to eye Snelling doubtfully, through an opera-glass
as the reefer ogled both of them at once.
"'By-the-by,' sang out the captain of the Indiaman to me again, 'I fancy
the passengers in that ship must have got somehow uncomfortable--one of
our Bengal grandees aboard of her wanted a berth to Calcutta with us,
t'other day in the Mozambique; but we're too full already!' 'Indeed,
sir?' said I; but the schooner's main-boom was jibbing over, and with
two or three more hails, wishing them a good voyage, and so on, away we
slipped past their weather-bow. The _Warringford_ got under weigh at
her leisure, and in an hour or two her topsails were down to leeward of
us. On I cracked with square and studding-sails to the quartering
breeze, till the schooner's light hull jumped to it, and aloft she was
all hung out of a side, like a dairyman's daughter carrying milk; with
the pace she went at, I could almost say to an hour when we should
overhaul the chase.
"Still, after two or three days of the trade-wind, well out in the
Indian Ocean, and not a spot to be seen, we had got so far up the Line
as to make me sure we had overrun her. Accordingly, the schooner was
hauled sharp on a wind to cruise slowly down across what must be the
Indiaman's track, judging as we could to a nicety, with a knowledge of
the weather we had had. For my part, I was so certain of sighting her
soon, that I ordered the after-cabins to be set to rights, seeing a
notion had taken hold of me of actually offering them to Sir Charles
Hyde for the voyage to Calcutta--fancy the thought! 'Twas too good to be
likely; but Violet herself actually being in that little after-cabin and
sleeping in it--the lively schooner heading away alone for India, and
they and Westwood the sole passengers aboard--why, the very idea of it
was fit to drive me crazy with impatience.
"Well, one fine night, after being on deck all day, and the whole night
before, almost, I had turned into my cot to sleep. From where I lay I
could see the moonshine off the water through the stern-light in that
after-cabin, by the half-open door. I felt the schooner going easily
through the water, with a rise and fall from the heave of the long
Line-swell; so close my eyes I couldn't, especially as the midshipman
could be heard snoring on the other side like the very deuce.
Accordingly I turned out into the after-cabin, and got hold of one of
the Frenchman's volumes to read, when, lo, and behold! I found it was
neither more nor less than Greek, all I knew being the sight of it. Next
I commenced overhauling the bundle of handwriting, which I took at first
for a French log of the schooner's voyage, and sat down on the locker to
have a spell at it. So much as I could make out, in spite of the queer
outlandish turn the letters had, and the quirks of the unnatural sort of
language, it was curious enough--a regular story, in fact, about his own
life, the war, and Bonaparte himself.
"At another time I'd have given a good deal to go through with it at odd
hours--and a strange affair I found it was some time afterwards; but
meanwhile I had only seen at the beginning that his name was _Le Comte
Victor l'Allemand, Capitaine, de la Marine Français_, and made out at
the end how there was some scheme of his beyond what I knew before, to
be carried out in India--when it struck me there was no one on the
quarter-deck above. I listened for a minute through the stern-window,
and thought I heard someone speaking, over the schooners lee-quarter, as
she surged along; so slipping on jacket and cap, I went on deck at once.
"It was middle-watch at the time; but as soon as I came up I saw all was
quiet--Webb near the gangway talking to the old Lascar serang, and
breaking the English wonderfully betwixt them; while the Lascars of the
watch were sitting like tailors in a ring on the forecastle planks, each
waiting for his turn of one cocoa-nut hookah, that kept hubble-bubbling
away gravely under the smoker's nose, as he took a long suck at it,
while the red cinder in the bowl lighted up his leathery Hindoo face and
moustache like a firefly in the root of a banyan, till he handed it,
without even a wipe, to his neighbour. These fellows had begun to get
much livelier as we made the tropics; and this same serang of theirs had
put out his horns once or twice to Snelling lately, though he drew them
in again the moment he saw me--a sulky old knotty-faced, yellow-eyed
devil I thought him at any rate, while his dish-cloth of a turban, his
long blue gown and red trousers, reminded you at sea in a gale of a
dancing dervish. The day we spoke the Indiaman, in fact, I noticed there
was something in the wind for a minute or two with him and his gang,
which put in my head at first to offer them to the captain for a couple
of good English hands; and as I passed him and Webb this time the serang
stopped his talk and sidled off.
"However, a beautiful night it was, as ever eye looked upon even in the
blue Indian Ocean: the heavens cloudless, the full round moon shining
high off our weather-beam again, the stars drawn up into her bright
light, as it were, trembling through the films of it like dewdrops in
gossamer of a summer morning: you saw the sea meet the sky on every
hand, without a speck on the clear line of horizon, through the squares
of our ratlins and betwixt the schooner's too long fore-and-aft booms.
A pretty strongish breeze we had too, blowing from east to west with a
sweep through the emptiness aloft, and a wrinkling ripple over the long
gentle swells as deep in the hue as if fresh dye came from the bottom,
and crisping into a small sparkle of foam wherever they caught it full.
Something pleasant, one could not say what, was in the air; and every
sheet being hauled taut to hold wind, the slant gush of it before her
beam drove her slipping ahead toward the quarter it came from, with a
dip down and a saucy lift of her jibs again, as if she were half
balanced amidships, but little noise about it. I took a squint aloft and
an overhaul all round, and nothing was to be seen. The size of the sky
through the moonlight looked awful, as it were, and the strength of the
breeze seemed to send a heavenly blue deep into the western quarter till
you saw a star in it The night was so lovely, in fact, it somehow made
one think of one's mother, and old times, when you used to say your
prayers. Still I couldn't see the mate of the watch on the weather
quarter-deck, which surprised me the more in Jones's case, since he was
always ready for me when I came up; and, to tell the truth, I shouldn't
have been sorry to catch him napping for once, only to show he was like
men in common. I walked aft by the weather-side of the large mainsail,
accordingly, till I saw him leaning with his head over the lee-bulwark,
and heard him again, as I thought, apparently speaking to someone down
the schooner's side; upon which I stepped across.
"Jones's back was to me as I looked over too; but owing to what he was
busy with, I suppose, and the wash of the water which was louder there
than in-board, while you heard the plash from her bows every time she
forged he evidently didn't hear me. You may fancy my wonder to find he
was reading aloud out to himself from the other of the Frenchman's
volumes, which I had no doubt left in the dining-cabin--the book open in
both hands, he giving it forth in long staves, with a break between--and
regular Greek it was too. You'd have thought he timed them to the plash
alongside; and I must say, as every string of long-tailed words flowed
together like one, in Jones's deep voice, and the swell rose once or
twice with its foam-bells near his very hands, I almost fancied I made a
meaning of them--each like a wave, as it were, sweeping to a crest, and
breaking. The gusto the man showed in it you can't conceive, and, what
was more, I had no doubt he understood the sense of it, for all of a
sudden, after twenty staves or so of the kind he stopped. 'There!' said
he, 'there, old Homer--women, wine, and adventure--what could the devil
ask more, blind old prater, with a sound in you like the sea? Ay, wash,
wash, wash away, lying old blue-water, you can't wash _it_ out--and
wine--no, not the strongest rum in Cape Town--can wash _you_ out!' With
that Jones laid his head on his arms, with the book still in one hand,
muttering to himself, and I listened in spite of me. 'Still, it rouses
the old times in me!' said he. 'Here comes this book across me, too. Ay,
ay, and the rector fancied, sitting teaching me Greek out of old wild
Homer all weekday--and--and his girl slipping out and in--'twould do to
don the cassock of a Sunday and preach out of the pulpit against the
world, the devil, and the flesh--then warn me against the sea--ha!'
"The laugh that came from him at that moment was more like a dog than a
human being; but on he went muttering 'Women, wine, and adventures, said
ye, old Greek, and a goddess too; still he _was_ a good old man, the
rector--no guile nor evil in him, with his books in the cases yonder,
and the church-spire seen through the window over the garden, and his
wife with--ah, the less of that the better.--Twas in me, though, and all
our blood--and in _her_ dark eyes, too, Mary though she was!' He broke
out again, after a bit, as if he'd been arguing it with something under
the side: 'I didn't take her the first time I came home--nor the
second--but-but--ay, I came _back_! Oh that parting-stile in sight of
the sea--and that packet-ship--but O God! that night--that night with
the schooner forging ahead through the blue--blue----' And he stopped
with a groan that shook him as he leant over. 'Hellish!' he said,
suddenly standing upright and looking straight aloft with his bare head
and face to the wide empty sky, and the moonlight tipping the hair on
his forehead, from over the high shadow on the lee-side of the mainsail,
where it glistened along the gaff. 'She was pure to the last!' I heard
him say, though I had walked to the other side of the boom; 'ay, though
I rot to perdition for it!--Down, old fiend!' as he lifted his one hand
with the book, and drove it alongside, seemingly watching it settle away
astern.
"Now I had heard nothing from Jones that I couldn't have fancied before,
and there was even a humour to my mind in the notion of clapping it all
on old Homer, if Homer it was, and heaving him overboard with such a
confoundedly complimentary burial-service. But some of the words that
dropped from him shot through one's veins like icicles; and now there
was something fearful in the sight of him standing straight again, with
a look right into the heavens, as if he'd have searched them up and
up--in that lovely night too, spread far and wide--the very rays of the
moonlight sparkled down the weather-side of the sail I was on, trembling
on the leech-ropes and brails as they swayed, and into the hollows they
made in the belly of the taut canvas; the long shining spot of it
wavered and settled on the same two planks of the quarter-deck, beyond
the shadow of the bulwark from the moon's eye, fast as the schooner
moved through the water, and it was like a hand laid upon her, with the
air and wind stretching between. Of a sudden I saw Jones wheel slowly
round where he stood, like a man turned about by main strength, with his
eyes fixed aloft, and his one arm raising from the shoulder till his
forefinger pointed to something, as I thought, about the
fore-to'gallantsail. His face was like ashes, his eye glaring, and I
sprang across to him under the main-boom. 'See!' said he, never turning
his head, and the words hissed betwixt his teeth, 'look at that!'
"'For Heaven's sake, _what_, Mr Jones?' said I. '_Her--her_,' was his
answer, 'coming against the wind--dead fore-and-aft in the shade of the
sails!' On the lee-sides of them the high boom-sails made a sort of a
thin shadow against the moonshine off the other beam, which came
glimpsing through between them out of a world of air to the south-east,
with a double of it flickering alongside on the water as it heaved past
to leeward; and whether it was fancy, or whether it was but the
reflection aloft from below, I thought as I followed Jones's finger, I
saw something like the shape of a woman's dress floating close in with
the bonnet of the fore-topmaststaysail, from the dusk it made to the
breast of the fore-topsail, and even across the gush of white light
under the yard--long and straight, as it were, like a thing lifted
dripping out of water, and going, as he said, right against the
schooner's course. 'Now in the foresail!' whispered Jones, his eye
moving as on a pivot, and a thrill ran through me at the notion; for I
made out one single moment what I thought a face against the sky at the
gaff-end, white as death, shooting aft towards the mainsail--though next
instant I saw it was but a block silvered by the moon as the schooner
lifted. 'Now the mainsail!' said he, huskily, 'and now--now by the
heavens--rising--rising to the gaff-topsail--away! O Lord! _Mary!_'
"He was leaning aft toward the width of the sky, with both hands
clutched together before him, shuddering all over. For the first minute
my own blood crept, I must say; but directly after I touched him on the
shoulder. 'This is strange, Mr Jones,' said I; 'what's the matter?'
'Once in the Bermudas!' said he, still wildly, 'once in the Pacific--and
now! Does the sea give up its dead, though, think ye?' 'You've a strong
fancy, Mr Jones, that's all,' I said sternly. 'Fancy!' said he, though
beginning to get the better of himself; 'did ye ever fancy a face
looking down--down at you in the utterest scorn--down sideways off the
shoulder of the garment, as it sticks wet into every outline like life?
All the time gliding on the other way, too, and the eyes like two stars
a thousand miles away beyond, as kind as angels'--neither wind nor sea
can stop it, till suddenly it rises to the very cope of heaven--still
looking scornfully down at you!--No, sir, fancy it _you_ couldn't!'
"The glance he gave me was somehow or other such as I couldn't
altogether stomach from the fellow, and he was turning to the side when
I said quietly, 'No, nor Homer either, I daresay!' Jones started and
made a step towards me. 'You heard me a little ago!' rapped out he,
eyeing me. 'Yes,' I said; 'by Jove! who could help being curious to hear
a sailor spout Greek as you were doing, Mr Jones?'
'The fact is, Mr Collins,' answered he, changing his tone, 'I was well
brought up--the more shame to me for bringing myself to what you saw me.
I had a sister drowned, too, on her passage to America one voyage, when
I was mate of the ship myself. No wonder it keeps my nerves shaking
sometimes, when I've had too long about shore.' 'Well, well, Jones,'
said I, rather softening, 'you've proved yourself a first-rate seaman,
and I've got nothing to complain of; but I tell you fairly I had my
doubts of you! So you'll remember you're under the Articles of War
aboard here, sir,' added I, 'which, as long as I have this schooner
under hand, I'll be hanged if I don't carry out!' All at once the
thought struck me, a little inconveniently, of my carrying off Webb, and
his people, and I fancied Jones's quick eye wandered to the Lascars
forward. 'I know it, sir,' said he, looking me steadily in the face;
'and what's more, Mr Collins, at any rate I couldn't forget you picked
me out, confounded low as I looked, to come aft here. 'Tis not every
captain afloat that has such a good eye for a seaman, as _I_ know!' 'Oh,
well, no more about it,' I said, walking forward on the weather-side,
and leaving him on the lee one as distinctly as Lord Frederick Bury
could have done to myself in the frigate. Jones no doubt thought I
didn't notice the slight wrinkle that gathered round his lee eye when he
gave me this touch of butter at the end; but I put it down for nothing
more, gammon though it was.
"It was near the end of the watch, the moon beginning to set, while it
still wanted three hours of daybreak in those latitudes, when the
look-out on the topgallant-yard, who was stationed there in man-o'-war
cruising fashion, reported a sail to windward. Just then the midshipman
came on deck to his watch, wonderfully early for him indeed, and on my
remarking it was probably the Indiaman at last, Jones himself went aloft
with the night-glass to make her out. 'Mr Snelling,' said I, 'see the
hands on deck ready for going about.' Next minute I saw him rousing up
the rest of the Lascars, who slept watch and watch on the forecastle.
Only five or six of the _Hebe's_ men were up, and all of them, save the
man at the wheel, ran aloft to rig out stunsail-booms to windward, as
soon as the schooner was fairly on the starboard tack, standing to
nor'-eastward. Suddenly I saw a scuffle between the midshipman and the
tindal,[25] a stout, dark-faced young Bengalee, with a jaunty skull-cap
and frock, whom Snelling had probably helped along with a touch of a
rope's end, and in a moment two or three more of them were upon him,
while the reefer drew his dirk, and sung out to me, scarce before I was
with him, the Lascars rolling into the lee-scuppers at two kicks of my
foot.
[25] Lascar boatswain's mate.
"Webb and three of the men from Cape Town were hoisting a stunsail at
the time, the smart man-o'-war's-men aloft singing out to them to bear a
hand. What with the noise of the sail flapping, and its being betwixt my
own men and the deck, they could know nothing of the matter; and the
Lascars let go the halliards in a body, making a rush at Snelling and
myself with everything they could pick up in the shape of a spar.
"This would have been nothing, as in two or three minutes more the men
would have been down, and the cocoa-faced rascals dodged every way from
the handspike I got hold of; but I just caught a glimpse on one side of
the sly old serang shoving on the fire-scuttle to keep down the watch
below; and on the other, of Webb looking round him, evidently to see how
matters stood. Two Dutchmen seized the first sailor that came down the
rigging, by the legs, and I saw the affair must be finished at once, it
had so much the look of a regular plot on Webb's part, if Jones wasn't
concerned in it too. I made one spring upon my Cape Town gentleman, and
took him by the throat with one hand, while I hit the biggest Dutchman
full behind the ear, felling him to the deck, on which the
man-o'-war's-man grappled his watch-mate, and Webb was struggling with
me sufficiently to keep both my hands full, when I had a pleasant
inkling of a Malay Lascar slipping toward my back with a bare kreese in
his fist.
"I just looked over my shoulder at his black eyes twinkling devilishly
before he sprang, when someone came sliding fair down from the
fore-topmast-head by a back-stay, and pitched in a twinkling on top of
his head--a thing enough to break the neck of a monument. Directly
after, I saw Jones himself hitting right and left with his night-glass,
from the moonlight to the shadow of the foresail, while Snelling tumbled
over a Lascar at every slap, standing up in boxer-style. By the time the
rest of the men came down all was settled--the Dutchmen sulking against
the bulwarks, and Webb gasping after I let him go. 'Boatswain,' said I
to one of the sailors,' clap that man in irons below. Mr Snelling, see
the watch called, sir.' 'I 'ad the law with me,' said Webb, gloomily.
'You plotted it, then, Mr Webb?' I said. 'Didn't you carry us off
illegally?' said he. 'I only meant to recover the vessel--upon my
honour, nothing more, sir; and if you're 'ard with me, you'll have to
answer for it, I assure you!' Here he looked round to Jones in a
strange way, as I fancied, for a moment; but Jones turned on his heel
with a sneer. 'Why, Mr Webb,' answered I, 'you lost that tack by
offering yourself in a watch, which makes the thing neither more nor
less than mutiny--so take him below, do ye hear, bo'sun!' And down he
went.
"'Now, Mr Jones,' said I, as soon as all hands were on deck, 'you'll be
so good as have half of these Lascars seized to the rigging here, one
after the other, and see a good dozen given to each of their backs; then
these two Dutchmen, each three dozen--then pipe down the watch, sir.'
"Jones glanced at me, then at the fellows, then at me again. I thought
he hung aback for an instant; but do it I was determined he should, for
a reason I had; and I gave him back the look steady as stone. 'Ay, ay,
sir,' said he, at last, touching his hat. I walked aft to the capstan,
and stood there till every mother's son of them had got his share, the
Lascars wriggling and howling on the deck after it, and the Dutchmen
twisting their backs as they walked off. 'Twas the first time I did that
part of duty in command, and I felt, in the circumstances, I was in for
carrying it out with a taut hand.
"By this time the moon was setting, and in the dusk we lost sight of the
sail to windward; but as we were heading well up to weather upon her,
and going at least ten knots, I turned in below for a little, leaving
the midshipman. Accordingly, it wasn't very long before Snelling called
me in broad daylight 'She's a large ship, Mr Collins,' said he,
'standing under all sail on a wind. I hope to goodness, sir, it's that
confounded Indiaman at last!' I hurried on deck, took the glass aloft,
and soon made out the jury fore-topmast shorter than the main, as the
old captain mentioned. Accordingly, it was with somewhat of a flutter in
me I came down again, watching the schooner's trim below and aloft, to
see if I couldn't take an hour or so off the time betwixt that and once
more setting eyes on the judge's daughter.