keep his countenance, and looking the sterner for the trouble he
was put to in doing it, "you will get your things and go aboard the
schooner directly--take her in charge, sir, and send Mr Hammond
back here."--"Very well, my lord," said I, waiting in the doorway
for something more, which, from something in Lord Frederick's
look, I had reason to expect, knowing it of old. "I can only spare
you a dozen of the men she has," added he; "but if you choose you
can send ashore at once to pick up a few makeshifts, or anything
you find!"--"Ay, ay, my lord," said I; "the best hand for that
would be Mr Snelling, if I may take him, Lord Frederick?" "Oh,
certainly," was the answer; "and harkye, Collins, you had better
shift your berth a few cable-lengths farther off, or more, if you
please."--"One thing, my lord," said I, stooping down to see through
the port, "I don't much like the heavy ground-swell that begins
to meet the ebb, Lord Frederick; and I fancy it won't be long ere
Table Mountain spread its supper-cloth--in which case I'd consider
it necessary to slip cable and run out at once, though I mightn't
get in again so easily. Am I to find the frigate here again, Lord
Frederick?"--"Deuce take it, man--no!" said his lordship. He turned
his back to hide the evident twinkle of his eye. "Should we part
company, of course you make for the Bay of Bengal! You can't be
sure of the Hebe, short of the Sandheads--and if not there, then
opposite Fort William, at Calcutta."--"Very good, my lord," said I,
and had made my bow to go on deck, when Lord Frederick called me
back. "By the bye," said he hastily, "about that Indiaman of yours,
Collins--she is here, no doubt?" "No, Lord Frederick," answered I,
"I believe she sailed a week ago." "Dear me, the deuce!" exclaimed
he, "why I meant to have sent to-morrow to have your friend Westwood
arrested and brought aboard!" I started at this, on which his
lordship explained that if Westwood got to Bombay, whither the
Seringapatam was bound, the authorities there would have news of the
thing by this time, and could send him overland at once to England,
which would be far worse for him than being carried to Calcutta,
where his uncle the Councillor's interest might do something for
him. "The best thing you can do, Collins," added Lord Frederick,
"if you _are_ obliged to run out to sea, is to look after that
Indiaman! With such a neat thing of a sea-boat under you, you might
do anything you please; so cruise to windward or leeward in chase,
find her out, and take out Westwood bodily--lose him afterwards in
the Hoogley, if you like--carry away those old spars of hers, and
send up new ones--only don't lose the schooner, I beg; so good bye
to you, my dear fellow, lest we should not meet on this side the
Line again!"--"Good bye, my lord!" said I cheerfully, and hurried on
deck, understanding all he wanted as well as if I'd been ordered to
set her jib that moment and heave up anchor. In ten minutes I was
over the frigate's side, and in ten more Hammond was back in her,
with the men who were to leave; while I sent my baggage below, set
the hands to work shifting the schooner's berth, and by sun-down we
were lying beyond hail of the ship, opposite the custom-house, and
a long line of a main street in Cape Town, where we could see the
people, the carriages, and the Dutch bullock-carts passing up and
down; while Table Mountain hove away up off the steep Devil's Hill
and the Lion's Rump, to the long level line a-top, as blue and bare
as an iron monument, and throwing a shadow to the right over the
peaks near at hand.
Our friend from the United States being by this time in quite an
oblivious condition, the first thing I did was to have him put
quietly into the boat with which Mr Snelling was to go ashore for
fresh hands, and I instructed the reefer to get clear of him anyhow
he liked, if it was only above tide-mark. When they were gone I
walked the schooner's little quarterdeck in the dusk by myself,
till the half moon rose with a ghostly copper-like glare over the
hollow in the Lion's Rump, streaking across the high face of Table
Mountain, and bringing out all its rifts and wrinkles again. The
land-breeze began to blow steadily with a long sighing sweep from
the north-east, meeting the heavy swell that set into the broad
bay; and the schooner, being a light crank little craft, got rather
uneasy; whereas you could see the lights of the frigate heaving and
settling leisurely, less than half a mile off. I had only six or
seven good hands aboard altogether at the time, which, with those
the midshipman had, were barely sufficient to work her in such seas;
so with all I had to do, with the difficulty of getting men in the
circumstances, a long voyage before us, and things that might turn
up, as I hoped, to require a touch of the regular service, why the
very pleasure of having a command made me a good deal anxious. Even
of that I didn't feel sure; and I kept watching Table Mountain,
eager for the least bit of haze to come across the top of it, as
well as sorry I had sent Snelling ashore. "I'd give a hundred pounds
at this moment," thought I, "to have had Bob Jacobs here!"
As the moon got higher, I could see the swell washing up between the
different merchantmen in sight, into their shadows, and heavy enough
some of them seemed to roll round their cables, betwixt a breeze
and a swell running the contrary ways; first one let go a second
anchor, and then another, to help their heads shoreward; but still
there was no danger, as things went. It wasn't long before I made
out two boats coming from toward the town, round the stern of one of
the ships, the frigate lying betwixt her and us, so that they took
her by the way, and a good deal of hailing seemed to pass between
them. I could even see epaulets glisten over the Hebe's quarter, as
if there was a stir made aboard; after which the boats were plainly
pulling for the schooner. What all this might mean, I couldn't very
well conceive, unless it were either Snelling come back already, or
else some hands Lord Frederick himself had provided before this, as
I saw both boats were full of people. "Forward there!" I sung out,
"hail those boats!"--"Ay, ay, the schooner ahoy!" was the answer,
in a sharp voice from the headmost of them, "from the shore--all
right! Stand by to heave us a line, will ye?" Next came a hail from
Snelling, in our own gig; so I at once gave orders to heave them
a rope and have both boats brought under the gangway, naturally
supposing the sharp little fellow had come some marvellous good
speed in shipping hands. As soon as he jumped on deck, I accordingly
inquired how many men he had brought, when to my great surprise he
informed me there was only one, "a scuffy sort of a swab," as he
expressed it, "who would do for cook!"--"The devil he will, you
young rascal," I broke out. "Hush, sir, for heaven's sake," said he,
making some extraordinary sign which I didn't understand; "it'll all
be right in the end, Mr Collins. Now then, sir," to some one in the
boat alongside, as he carefully handed him the accommodation-ropes,
"here you are--hold on, sir--so-o!" This was a rather youngish
fellow in a huge pilot coat and a glazed cap, with some kind of
uniform inside, and a large breastpin in his shirt, who handed
me a paper the moment he stood firm on deck, without speaking a
word; though, by the light of the deck-lantern, I didn't much like
the look of his foxy sort of face, with the whiskers on it coming
forward from both cheeks to his mouth, nor the glance he gave round
the schooner with his pair of quick sharp little eyes. "Much more
like a custom-house officer than a cook!" thought I, "unless we mean
to have a French one;" but what was my astonishment, on opening
the paper, to find him called "Gilbert Webb, harbour-master's
assistant, hereby authorised by the Admiralty Court, sitting in
Cape Town, to take charge of the doubtful vessel described in her
papers as the 'Ludovico,' belonging to Monte Video--from the officer
commanding the prize crew of his Britannic Majesty's ship Hebe."
My first thought was to have Mr Gilbert Webb pitched over into his
boat again, when Lord Frederick's own signature met my eye at the
bottom of the paper, addressed below to "Lieutenant Collins, of his
Majesty's schooner Aniceta, _at sea_." A wonderfully mysterious
squint from Snelling, behind the officer, was sufficient to clinch
the matter in my own mind, showing that the reefer was as sharp as
a needle: and I handed back the document to the harbour gentleman,
with a "Very well, sir, that will do." "I suppose I'd better have
my men up, Lieutenant Collins?" said he, with a quick pert kind of
accent, which made me set him down at once for a Londoner, while
at the same time he seemed impatient, as I thought, to get the
management. "Why, sir," said I, "I suppose you had."
Hereupon up mounted four or five decent enough looking
_stevedores_[7]--one or two of whom had rather the air of sailors,
the rest being broad-beamed, short-legged Dutchmen, with trousers
like pillow-slips--followed by a whole string of fourteen or fifteen
Indian Lascars, their bundles in their hands, and an ugly old
_serdug_ at their head; while the lame, broken-down, debauched-like
fellow of a man-o'-warsman, that Snelling had found sitting on
a timberhead ashore, got aboard with our own boat's crew. Our
gangway was chokeful, to my fresh dismay, for to get rid of such a
tagrag-and-bobtail, in case of running to sea, was impossible; even
if they weren't odds against us, here was it likely to get a thick
night, the swell growing under the schooner till she began to yerk
at her anchor, head to wind, like a young filly at a manger; so that
dropping them back into their boat when needful, as I intended at
first, was out of the question for the present. I found from the
harbour officer that the number of hands would all be required with
the morning tide, when his orders were to have the schooner towed
in opposite the Battery Dock, especially as there was much chance
of the wind blowing strong from seaward next day. The swell on the
water, he said, was such that, after putting off, he thought of
going back again till the tide began to turn; if he had not been
encouraged to stick to it and keep on by the midshipman, whom he
fell in with near the quay. This piece of news was the finish to the
rage I felt brewing in me, vexed as I naturally was to give up the
notion of a free cruise, in command of a craft like the schooner;
and, as soon as Mr Webb was comfortable in the cabin, over a tumbler
of stiff grog and some cold beef, I sent for Snelling to my own
cupboard of a state-room.
[7] Men employed in the stowing of ships' cargoes.
"You cursed unlucky little imp you!" I burst out, the moment he made
his appearance, "What's the meaning of this, sirrah? eh?"--"What
is it, if you please, sir?" said Snelling, pretending to hold down
his shock-head like a frightened schoolboy, and looking up all
the time both at me and the lamp at once, while he swayed with
the uneasy heave of the deck in such a way as made me grip him by
the arm in a perfect fury, fancying he had got drunk ashore. "You
young blackguard you!" said I, shaking him, "didn't I tell you to
get hands--didn't you know I meant to--to--" "Oh yes, Mr Collins,"
gasped the reefer, "I did indeed--you meant to cut and run--I saw
it by your eye, sir, and--don't shake me any more, sir, or you'll
spoil my hair--and I don't deserve it--it's--all right!" And on my
letting him go, the ugly little scamp sunk down on a chair with
his eyes starting from his head, and a leer like a perfect demon
incarnate; but so perfectly laughable it was, not to mention the
air of complete confidence between us that he threw into it, that
I sat down myself, ready to grin at my bad luck. "Well, Mister
Snelling," said I, quietly, "you _are_ a touch beyond me! Let's
have the joke, at least--out with it, man, else another shake may
be--" The reefer pointed with his thumb over his shoulder to the
cabin, shoved his chin forward, and whispered, "Why, sir, I'm only
doubtful whether you could make him third officer--but at any rate,
he'll always be useful at a rope, Mr Collins--won't he, sir?" I gave
Snelling one look, meant to be as grave as an Old Bailey chaplain's,
but it wouldn't do--my conscience wouldn't stand it--in fact the
very self-same notion seemed to me to have been creeping into my
mind. "You--young--rascal!" was all I could manage to say, before
making bolt to go on deck. "By the by, Mister Snelling," said I,
turning and looking down from the hatchway, "you must want a glass
of grog--tell the boy to let you have some--and go and keep the
officer company, sir."
By this time it was raining hard, the half-moon coming out at
moments and shining through it with a sudden sharp gleam, in some
gust of the wind off the land--showing the swell in as far as the
wet white custom-house and the bare quays, the ships with their
hazy lights all hither and thither, while Table Mountain was to be
seen now and then peering half over the mist, first one corner and
then another, of a colour like dead ashes. One time I looked down
toward the dusky little cabin, where the midshipman, quite in his
element, was sitting with the harbour officer, the lamp jerking and
making wild swings betwixt them, while Snelling evidently egged on
his companion to drink; then I gave a glance seaward, where there
was nothing but a glimmer of rain and spray along the dark hollows
of the water. I couldn't make up my mind, all I could do--it was
too barefaced a thing to slip from the roadstead with a breeze
blowing off-shore; but the worst of it was that I didn't feel easy
at the idea of parting with an anchor in the circumstances, not
to say carrying off the Government people, unless forced to it. I
accordingly went below to mix myself a stiffener, and found the
officer a cool head, for, in spite of all Snelling could do, the
reefer himself had got provoked, whereas the sharp Mr Webb was
only a little brisker than before. "A rough sort of night," said
I, nodding to him, as I knocked the water out of my cap. "Well,
it seems," said he, free and easy. "S'pose I go on deck then,
gentlemen--I've refreshed, I assure you, so you needn't trouble
about this 'ere schooner no farther--glad to get quit of it and turn
in, I desay, lieutenant?"--"No trouble in the world, Mr Webb," said
I, going on with my mixture, "far from it; but sit down a minute,
pray sir,--Mr Snelling here will take charge of the deck for us in
the meantime;" and Snelling vanished at once, Mr Webb apparently
flattered at my wishing his company. "Will that cable of yours
hold, think ye, Lieutenant Collins?" asked he, filling up another
glass. "Why," said I, almost laughing, "to tell you the truth,
I begin to feel devilish doubtful of it." "What!" broke out the
harbour officer, starting up, "then I must 'ave another put down
immediately: why, what's the effect, sir--we'll be carried out to
sea!" "You said it exactly, Mr Webb," I said "'twould have been much
worse, I suppose, if we were driven ashore, though! Now look you,
if I were to let go a second anchor at present, I couldn't light
upon a better plan either to break her back, or lose both anchors in
the end--from the difference of strain on the two cables, with this
ground-swell. The fact is, my good fellow, you're evidently not fit
to take charge at present." "D--n me, lieutenant!" said he, looking
fierce and foolish at the same time, "here's strange lang'age to a
Gov'ment officer, sir--I hask the meanin' off it _at_ once, mister!"
"But I depend a good deal on your knowledge of Table Bay weather,"
I continued, leaning back with my weather eye screwed to bear upon
him. "D'ye think this wind likely to moderate soon, sir? come
now."--"No," replied he sulkily: "I'm sure it won't--and to-morrow
it's certain to blow back ten times worse." "Then, Mr Webb," said
I, rising, "you oughtn't to have come aboard to-night; as the short
and the long of it is, I shall get the schooner an offing the first
possible moment!" The officer stared at me in a bewildered manner;
and as for the schooner, she seemed to be bolting and pitching in
a way worse than before, with now and then a plunge of the swell
on her broadside as if she had been under weigh. Suddenly Snelling
lifted the skylight frame and screamed down into the cabin, "Mr
Collins, Mr Collins! she's been dragging her anchor for the last ten
minutes, sir!"
I sprang on deck at two bounds--the schooner had somehow or other
got her anchor out of hold at the time, the cable as taut as a
fiddle-string. It was quite dark aloft, and not a vestige of Table
Mountain to be seen, though the moonshine, low down to westward,
brought out two or three tracks of light along the stretch of water,
and you saw the lights in the ships slowly sweeping past. Where we
happened to be, it blew two ways at once, as is often the case in
Table Bay, round the bluffs of the mountain, and as soon as she
brought up again with a surge at the windlass, the heave of a long
swell took her right on the quarter, lifting her in to her anchor
again with a slack of the hawser, at which every second man sung out
to "hold on!" Over she went to port, a sea washing up the starboard
side, and throwing a few dozen bucketfuls at once fair into the
companion, where our friend the harbour officer was sticking at the
time; so down plumped Mr Webb along with it, and the booby hatch
was shoved close after him, while the poor devils of Lascars were
huddled together as wet as swabs in the lee of the caboose forward.
"A hand to the wheel!" shouted I, as soon as I recovered myself;
when to my great surprise I saw Snelling's new hand, poor creature
as I'd thought him, standing with a spoke in each fist, as cool and
steady as possible, and his eye fixed on me in the true knowing way
which I felt could be trusted to. "Jib there!" I sung out, "see all
clear to run up a few hanks of the jib--stand by to cut the cable at
the bitts!"--"Ay, ay, sir," answered Snelling, who was working away
with the harbour men, his bare head soaked, and altogether more like
an imp than a young gentleman of the navy--"All's clear, sir."
Five minutes I dare say we stood, every one in the same position,
while I waited for a good moment in the run of the swell, looking
into the binnacle: till she hung slack, as it were, in a wide
seething trough of the sea, when I signed to the man behind me to
put the helm gradually to starboard. I glanced at the fellow again,
caught his sharp weatherly eye once more--then putting both hands to
my mouth I sung out to bowse on the jib halliards. "Now--cut--the
cable!" shouted I, springing forward in my anxiety. The schooner
rose away from her anchor on the heavy roll of the sea; I saw two
quick strokes of the axe on the instant, and she was spinning head
off from the wind, heeling over betwixt the force of it and the
ground-swell together, while the mass of black water was washing
bodily away with us; the new helmsman showing down below me as he
leant to the wheel, like somebody at the foot of a slide. If he
hadn't helped her at the moment with a back turn of the spokes to
port, t'would have been all up with us. As it was, the schooner fell
off gallantly in his hands, with a sliding surge into the lee of
the next swell, that buried her sharp bows in the green sea, till
it foamed about our very shoulders as we hung on like grim death
to the weather bulwark. She was just shaking herself free, and
rising like a buoy over the broad tops of the waves, when Snelling,
myself, and two or three of the men, staggered down to her mainmast
to swig up the throat halliards, letting her feel a little of the
boom mainsail; and we had scarce belayed, as the last glimpse of the
frigate's lights was caught astern of us, heaving and setting, as
she rode with her two bower anchors down; we had driven past close
enough to have heard the creak of her hamper aloft. After that, I
had the fore-stay-sail set on her, then the reefed mainsail, and the
lively schooner yielded to the long rolling seas so well, as very
soon to make her own weather of it--especially since, clear of the
high land about Table Bay, it was blowing only a strong breeze, and
the more I began to feel master of her, the more inclined I was to
let her show her good qualities. Such a craft I never had had the
full management of before in my life; and you may easily fancy how
I felt at dividing the hands into the two watches, giving little
Snelling command of one, as first mate, and picking out our men in
turn. I looked round amongst mine, rather at a loss for one to make
second mate for the cruise, though there were three prime enough
man-o'-warsmen, and I had chosen one of the Government officer's
gang for his activity. As for the Lascars, we slumped in half of
the number to each of us, for make-weights--when Snelling's fresh
hand, who had fallen to my share, caught my eye again as he stood
at the wheel. Every half spoke he gave the schooner told; she was
topping the heavy seas as they rose, and taking them just where they
melted one to the other, with a long floating cleave, that carried
her counter fairly free of the after-run, though nearly right before
the wind: the main-boom had been guyed over to the lee-quarter, till
a third of the sail hung clear of her hull, and the breeze swept
into the hollow of it, thick with spray. The light from the little
binnacle shone up distinctly on the man's face, and with all the
desperate, used-up, marbled sort of look of it, like one getting
the better of a long spree ashore, I thought there was something
uncommonly promising about him, not to say greatly above the run of
foremast men. The wet, the wind, and the work he was at, took off
the seediness of his clothes; even the old rag of a handkerchief
round his hairy neck had got a gloss to it, and he stood handling
the wheel with a strange mixture of recklessness and care, as he
glanced from the compass to the gaff of the mainsail against the
scud, and down again. The very contrast between the man's manner
and his outward rig was sufficient to strike one, though plenty of
seamen are to be found in the like state ashore: but what fixed me
to him above all, was the expression in those two keen, searching,
_living_ eyes of his, when they once or twice met mine on their
way from aloft to the compass-boxes. 'Twas as if they'd woke up
since he came aboard out of a sleepy, maudlin condition, with the
"blue-devils" or scarce fully out of 'em; like a sick man's in the
lull of a fever, suddenly seen watching you out of the dusk of the
bed, when one happens to glance up from the nurse's seat.
"What's your name, my man?" asked I, stepping aft to the binnacle.
"My name is Jones, sir," said he readily. "And your first name?"
I said. "Jack," was the answer, in an off-hand way, with a hitch
of one shoulder, and a weather-spoke to the wheel; spoken in an
accent you'd have expected more in a West End drawing-room than
from a common sailor. "Ah," said I, sharply, "Jack Jones? I wonder
how many Jack Joneses there are afloat! An able seaman, I think,
Jones?"--"Why sir," replied the man, "I never rate myself, sir--'tis
all one to me, able, ordinary, landsman, or boy--I carry no papers,
and leave my betters to rate me." "Where were you last, my man?"
I asked; whereupon I met such a cool, steady, deep look out of
the fellow's strange light-coloured eyes, bloodshot as they were
with drinking, that I felt almost our very two souls jostle in it:
as much as to say, To all eternity fathom me if ye can! "Well, I
forget where, sir," said he, lowering his look to the compass-box
again: "always the way with me, after a trip, a cruise, a voyage, or
whatever it may be. I've got--ha!" and he yielded his body coolly
to a jerk of the schooner's wheel. "A sweet craft this, sir, but
a little ticklish!" "You've got what?" said I, not unwilling to
wear out the time. "I've got--no memory!" Still there was somewhat
so gloomy and mournful in the next glance aloft, I don't know how
it was, but I felt inclined to offer him a mate's place on trial,
and so I hinted, if he knew half as well how to handle a craft as
he did of steering her. To my own surprise, Jones's wonder didn't
seem to be roused at the notion, except that he gave me another
quick glance from head to foot, with a queer smile that struck me
as if I were being questioned, instead of _him_; then he looked
down over his own outfit, judging by which you'd have said he'd
been shipwrecked. "Well," said I, "I daresay you've been hard put
to it, somehow, Jones,--so as soon as you leave the wheel, you can
go below to the steward, and get a seagoing suit of my own, till we
see Calcutta, when your mate's wages will set you all right again."
The man touched his battered old straw hat; but I noticed his eyes
gleam for a moment by the binnacle light, and a strange twitch run
round his mouth at the mention of the mate's wages: the only way I
could account for it at the time being his late hard-up condition;
and nothing to my mind was more deucedly pitiable, than to see the
thought of a few paltry additional rupees light up a head like that,
with the glistening sort of expression of a miser, as I fancied.
The man had a head on him, in fact, when you eyed him, fit for a
gentleman's shoulders, or more--his hair and his whiskers curly and
dark, draggled though they were with the rain, not to say Cape Town
mud--while the wearing away of the hair about the temples, and the
red grog-streaks in the veins of his face, made him no doubt a dozen
years older to appearance than he was. For my part I was quite
convinced already, this same Jack Jones hadn't been sent out a cabin
boy; there was not only a touch of high blood in him at bottom, but
I'd have sworn he had been some time or other in the place of a
gentleman, afloat or ashore, though plainly now "going to the devil."
Meanwhile the breaking look of the clouds away on our larboard bow
showed it wasn't far off dawn; so, sending another hand to the
wheel, and finding a snug spot under a stern-grating for a snooze
on deck, I told Jones to begin with taking charge of the deck for
me. "One thing, sir," said he, touching his hat again, as I lay
down, "I've only shipped for the outward voyage, and leave at the
first port."--"Why, what the deuce!" said I, lifting my head; "what
do you mean to do there, eh?" "I--I want to go ashore," answered
he, eagerly; "ay, if we're years on the cruise, so much the better,
sir,--but so soon as she drops anchor off Calcutta, I'm my own
master?"--"Have your own way, then," said I; "at any rate I'll try
you in the meantime,--so Mister Jones, let's see how you mind the
schooner till eight bells!" Whereupon I turned myself over to sleep,
and it was as broad daylight as we had any likelihood of about the
Cape, when I woke.