"Peace to his spirit, poor boy," said our chief solemnly. "He's gone to
his last muster!"
It was Two Bells in the first dog-watch before the _Ruby_ closed with us
sufficiently to speak with us; when she reported that she had parted
with the other ships of the squadron even before she had lost sight of
us at the commencement of the gale, not seeing anything of them since.
Her commander also informed the commodore that they had lost two men
overboard while reefing topsails in a squall, the sea running so high
that it was impossible to lower a boat to save them.
We, in our turn, told of poor `Ugly's' heroic end: and, as it was
approaching sunset, his body was sewn up in his hammock, with a shot
fastened to the feet, and committed to the deep.
All hands were present while the chaplain read the funeral service on
the quarter-deck: and, as the grating on which the poor fellow's remains
rested, covered for the moment with the Union Jack, was canted through
the port and its lifeless burden went below with a splash, to its last
resting-place until the sea shall give up its dead, the waning sun
dipped below the horizon.
We then squared yards and bore away straight for Madeira, with the
_Ruby_ keeping company on our lee beam; the wind having sobered down now
to a good ten-knot breeze, and the weather all that one could wish,
getting warmer with every hour of south latitude that we made.
Everybody was jolly that evening as we bowled along before the spanking
breeze, fresh sail being set every watch, until the corvette was
presently clothed in canvas from truck to keelson, the commodore wishing
to take every advantage of the fair wind we had; but, though all the
rest, sailor-like, were laughing and joking on the mess-deck forwards, I
could not so soon forget the poor chap who had gone, his noble self-
sacrifice being ever in my mind.
It was strange that reserved, unforgiving, and yet not unforgetful
temperament of his!
I saw now, when too late, that he had not been quite oblivious of my
having saved him that time on board the _Saint Vincent_ when he so
nearly tumbled from aloft. He had not been ungrateful, as Mick and I
thought him, evidently.
On the contrary, the obligation he believed himself to be under to me
had so weighed upon him that he was too proud to speak until he had
cleared it off, so, he apparently fancied, to be able to treat with me
on level terms.
Mick Donovan had not been on deck when the tragic occurrence happened;
but he was almost as much impressed as myself when I told him of our
shipmate's last words.
"Begorrah, Tom," cried he, wiping his eye with the sleeve of his jumper,
"Oi wudn't 'a belaved it, sure, if ye hadn't towld me, mabouchal, wid
yer own potato trap! Faith, the poor chap samed quoite a t'other sort.
Sure, Tom, me darlint, as he's bin an' gone an' saved the noomber ov yer
mess, be the powers, Oi'll spake to Father O'Flannagan whin I git back
to Porchmouth an' ax him fur to say a mass, sure, fur the poor beggar,
so that his sowl may rest in paice. May the saints protict him!"
Three days afterwards, without any further adventure, we anchored in
Funchal Roads.
Here the squadron remained a week, the other ships having joined us when
within a day's sail of Madeira; and, as we were going to make such a
comparatively long stay, the men were granted leave to go ashore, watch
and watch in turn.
Just before we left, the commodore gave a grand picnic to all the
officers at the Grande Curral, when I had the luck of accompanying the
party that went from our ship, a piece of good fortune shared by Mick,
my chum.
This Curral, a name which means, I'm told, in the Spanish language a
`sheepfold,' is an immense valley, completely surrounded by hills, that
lies a few miles to the north-west of Funchal, the capital of the
island.
The hills encircling the natural plateau of the Curral are literally
perpendicular, being in no part less than a thousand feet high; while
round a part of the cliffs there is a narrow road leading to the `garden
houses' of the rich folk having business premises in the town, and a
number of plantations, which is cut out of the solid rock and is about
ten or twelve feet high.
As the picnic party went along over this road, the view presented to our
eyes on looking down below was that of an unfathomable abyss, filled up
by a mass of clouds and vapours, all rolling about in constant motion,
and tumbling the one on top of another.
Mick and I were each aboard a mule and enjoyed ourselves to rights,
racing against one another all the way; though we took precious good
care to keep in the rear of our officers, amongst whom was Lieutenant
Robinson, whose liver must have been particularly out of sorts that
morning, for he was in a grumpier and more fault-finding mood than
usual.
He did catch sight of us once as we were turning a sharp point in the
road round a projection of a cliff; but, through the fortunate
circumstance of the mule which the lieutenant was riding happening to
bolt at the moment, the joker had too much to do in taking care of his
own valuable carcass to have much time to growl at us.
The lieutenant, though, did not forget the incident: for, on Mick
chancing to trip over one of his legs as he sat on the grass while
handing him a plate of salad, the pleasant gentleman called him as many
names as some of the watermen at Point are in the habit of using when
they are put out of temper by being cheated of a fare.
"Bedad, Tom," whispered Mick to me, when he got out of range of the
lieutenant's grapeshot, and we were having a feed ourselves in a quiet
corner, "Oi wush thet blissid ould baist he wor roidin' hed run away wid
him, sure, over the cliff an' made an ind ov the spalpeen! Faith, it
isn't mesilf thet wud cry me oyes out, or wear mournin' fur him!"
On leaving Madeira, which we did with much regret, the people being very
hospitable and most good-naturedly disposed towards all sailors,
especially to British bluejackets, we fetched a compass for Teneriffe,
where we arrived some three or four days afterwards; the commodore
occupying the additional time in exercising the ships under his command,
and matching them one against another.
In sailing on a wind the _Active_, I'm glad to say, beat all the rest of
the squadron; though, in running before the wind, the little _Ruby_
weathered on us and the _Volage_, our sister ship, ran us pretty close.
When nearing Teneriffe and close in to the African coast, we saw a
splendid tight in the sea, between a big black whale on the one side,
and a `thrasher' or fox-shark on the other, aided by a swordfish, with
which latter he had just apparently struck up an alliance offensive and
defensive for the time.
The thrasher, which has a back as elastic as an india-rubber ball, would
jump clean out of the water and give the whale a whack in the ribs that
must have taken all the elasticity out of him; and then, on the poor
leviathan of the deep fluking his tail to dive so as to escape from his
aerial antagonist, his chum the swordfish would tickle up the whale from
below by sending a yard or two of his long saw-like snout into his
tenderest part.
Presently, as we luffed up to see the end of the fun, the sea in the
vicinity of the fray became tinged with blood, the colour of carmine,
showing that somebody at all events was having a bad time of it.
"By the powers, it bates Bannagher," cried Mick, who was watching the
fight alongside of me on the upper deck, springing up on to the hammock
nettings in his excitement to see the finish, unthinking of the breach
of discipline he was committing. "Go it, ye cripples. Sure, Tom, the
little wun'll win--what d'ye call him?"
"He's a thrasher," I replied, jumping up, too, on the top of the
nettings. "A sort of shark, I think. Father has one stuffed at home,
stowed away somewhere, that looks like that chap. If so, he's a fox-
shark."
"A fox-shark, begorrah!" repeated Mick, with a grin. "Faith, Tom, he's
goin' fur thet ould whale theer ez if he wor not ownly a fox, sure, but
a pack of hounds as will, alannah!"
"Hi, there, you boys," roared out a voice at this juncture, which we had
little difficulty in recognising as belonging to Lieutenant Robinson,
who was again officer of the watch this afternoon, his turn of duty
having once more come round. "Get off that netting at once and go
below, both of you. Master-at-arms, take those boys' names down and put
them in the report, and bring them up on the deck after `divisions' to-
morrow!"
The `Jaunty,' who was standing below the break of the poop, looked up at
the scowling lieutenant, saluting him.
"Very good, sir," said he, with another touch of his hat, in recognition
of the authority of the speaker. "I will see to it, sir."
But, a `Deus ex machina,' or `God from the bathing-machine,' as our old
captain of the _Saint Vincent_ would have said in his Latin lingo, just
then intervened on our behalf.
Mick Donovan and I were sneaking down the main hatch, like a pair of
whipped dogs with their tails between their legs--though I must say we
were more chagrined at losing the best part of the fight going on in the
water, which was rapidly approaching a climax, than dismayed at having
incurred the displeasure of the lieutenant--when, if you please, we
heard somebody shout out something behind us, and the master-at-arms,
who had followed in our wake, called out to us to stop.
"Belay there, you boys," he shouted down the hatchway. "Ye're to return
on deck!"
In obedience to this order, we ascended the ladder-way again, retracing
our steps at an even slower pace than we had gone down at; for we both
expected, the same thought having flashed across our minds when the
`Jaunty' hailed us, that Lieutenant Robinson had, on more mature
consideration, fancied he had let us off too lightly for the heinous
offence we had committed, and had ordered us to be brought back to give
us `four dozen' apiece at least, there and then!
The result, however, was very different to our sad anticipations; for
when we reached the deck the old commodore was standing by the poop
rail, close to the ladder on the port side leading down from thence into
the waist of the ship.