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Chapter XXIX.
"Let them achieve me, and then sell my bones."--_Henry V._
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The Commander of the "Dart," and his bewildered lieutenant, had gained the
quarter-deck before either spoke again. The direction first taken by the
eyes of the latter was in quest of the neighbouring ship; nor was the look
entirely without that unsettled and vague expression which seems to
announce a momentary aberration of the faculties. But the vessel of the
Rover was in view, in all the palpable and beautiful proportions of her
admirable construction Instead of lying in a state of rest, as when he
left her, her head-yards had been swung, and, as the sails filled with the
breeze, the stately fabric had he gun to Marve gracefully, though with no
great velocity along the water. There was not the slightest appearance
however, of any attempt at escape in the evolution. On the contrary, the
loftier and lighter sails had all been furled, and men were at the moment
actively employed in sending to the deck those smaller spars which were
absolutely requisite in spreading the canvas that would be needed in
facilitating her flight. Wilder turned from the sight with a sickening
apprehension; for he well knew that these were the preparations that
skillful mariners are wont to make, when bent on desperate combat.
"Ay, yonder goes your St. James's seaman, with his three topsails full,
and his mizzen out, as if he had already forgotten he is to dine with me,
and that his name is to be found at one end of the list of Commanders and
mine at the other," grumbled the displeased Bignall. "But we shall have
him coming round all in good time, I suppose, when his appetite tells him
the dinner hour. He might wear his colours in presence of a senior, too,
and no disgrace to his nobility. By the Lord, Harry Ark, he handles those
yards beautifully! I warrant you, now, some honest man's son is sent
aboard his ship for a dry nurse, in the shape of a first lieutenant, and
we shall have him vapouring, all dinner time, about 'how my ship does
this,' and 'I never suffer that.' Ha! is it not so, sir? He has a thorough
seaman for his First?"
"Few men understand the profession better than does the Captain of yonder
vessel himself," returned Wilder.
"The devil he does! You have been talking with him, Mr Ark, about these
matters, and he has got some of the fashions of the 'Dart.' I see into a
mystery as quick as another!"
"I do assure you, Captain Bignall, there is no safety in confiding in the
ignorance of yonder extra ordinary man."
"Ay, ay, I begin to overhaul his character. The young dog is a quiz, and
has been amusing himself with a sailor of what he calls the old school. Am
I right, sir? He has seen salt water before this cruise?"
"He is almost a native of the seas; for more than thirty years has he
passed his time on them."
"There, Harry Ark, he has done you handsomely. Now, I have his own
assertion for it, that he will not be three-and-twenty until to-morrow."
"On my word, he has deceived you, sir."
"I don't know, Mr Ark; that is a task much easier attempted than
performed. Threescore and four years add as much weight to a man's head as
to his heels! I may have undervalued the skill of the younker but, as to
his years, there can be no great mistake. But where the devil is the
fellow steering to? Has he need of a pinafore from his lady mother to come
on board of a man-of-war for his dinner?"
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"See! he is indeed standing from us!" exclaimed Wilder, with a rapidity
and delight that would have excited the suspicions of one more observant
than his Commander.
"If I know the stern from the bows of a ship, what you say is truth,"
returned the other, with some austerity. "Hark ye, Mr Ark, I've a mind to
furnish the coxcomb a lesson in respect for his superiors and give him a
row to whet his appetite. By the Lord, I will; and he may write home an
account of this manoeuvre, too, in his next despatches. Fill away the
after-yards, sir; fill away. Since this _honourable_ youth is disposed to
amuse himself with a sailing-match, he can take no offence that others are
in the same humour."
The lieutenant of the watch, to whom the order was addressed, complied;
and, in another minute, the "Dart" was also beginning to move a-head,
though in a direction directly opposite to that taken by the "Dolphin."
The old man highly enjoyed his own decision, manifesting his
self-satisfaction by the infinite glee and deep chuckling of his manner.
He was too much occupied with the step he had just taken, to revert
immediately to the subject that had so recently been uppermost in his
mind; nor did the thought of pursuing the discourse occur to him, until
the two ships had left a broad field of water between them, as each moved,
with ease and steadiness, on its proper course.
"Let him note that in his log-book, Mr Ark," the irritable old seaman then
resumed, returning to the spot which Wilder had not left during the
intervening time. "Though my cook has no great relish for a frog, they who
would taste of his skill must seek him. By the Lord, boy, he will have a
pull of it, if he undertake to come-to on that tack.--But how happens it
that you got into his ship? All that part of the cruise remains untold."
"I have been wrecked, sir, since you received my last letter."
"What! has Davy Jones got possession of the red gentleman at last?"
"The misfortune occurred in a ship from Bristol, aboard which I was placed
as a sort of prize-master.--He certainly continues to stand slowly to the
northward!"
"Let the young coxcomb go! he will have all the better appetite for his
supper. And so you were picked up by his Majesty's ship the 'Antelope.'
Ay, I see into the whole affair. You have only to give an old sea-dog his
course and compass, and he will find his way to port in the darkest night.
But how happened it that this Mr Howard affected to be ignorant of your
name, sir, when he saw it on the list of my officers?"
"Ignorant! Did he seem ignorant? perhaps"--
"Say no more, my brave fellow, say no more," interrupted Wilder's
considerate but choleric Commander. "I nave met with such rebuffs myself;
but we are above them, sir, far above them and their impertinences
together. No man need be ashamed of having earned his commission, as you
and I have done, in fair weather and in foul. Zounds, boy, I have fed one
of the upstarts for a week, and then had him stare at a church across the
way, when I have fallen in with him in the streets of London, in a fashion
that might make a simple man believe the puppy knew for what it had been
built. Think no more of it, Harry; worse things have happened to myself, I
do assure you."
"I went by my assumed name while in yonder ship," Wilder forced himself to
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add. "Even the ladies who were the companions of my wreck, know me by no
other."
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