CHAPTER XXVI

“YO-HEAVE-YO!”

It was pitch dark in the cabin, but although under a cloudy sky there was light enough to discern objects on deck or alongside. As Smoke-Jack observed, stealing aft with bare feet, and in a louder whisper than was prudent, “A good pair of eyes might see as far as a man could heave a bull by the tail.” George had determined to give the crew a lesson, once for all, in the matter of discipline, and felt well pleased to make example of the new-comers, who must be supposed as yet ignorant of his system.

So he sat in the dark, pistol in hand, at the stern window, which was open, and watched like the hunter for his prey.

He heard the three Jacks creeping along the deck overhead, he heard low whispers and a smothered laugh, followed by a few brief expostulations as to priority of disembarkation, the language far less polite than the intention; lastly, he heard the tackle by which his boat was made fast running gently over its blocks.

Then he cocked his pistol without noise, and laughed to himself.

Gradually the cabin window was obscured. A dark object passed smoothly down, and revealed in its progress a human figure indistinctly visible above its black horizontal mass, which was indeed the slow-descending boat, containing no less a personage than the adventurous Slap-Jack; also two lines of tackle were dimly visible supporting that boat’s head. A turn of the body, as he covered them steadily with his pistol, enabled the Captain to bring these two lines into one.

Hand and eye were equally true. He was sure of his mark before he pulled the trigger. With a flash that lighted up the cabin, and an explosion that filled it with smoke, the bullet cut clean through the “falls,” or ropes, supporting the boat’s head, bringing her perpendicularly on end, and shooting every article she contained—planks, bottom-boards, stretchers, oars, boat-hook, an empty hen-coop, and the astonished occupant—plump into seven fathom of water.

Nor was the consternation created by this alarming capsize confined to the unfortunate Slap-Jack. His comrades, lowering away industriously from the taffrail, started back in the utmost bewilderment, the anchor-watch rushed aft, persuaded a mutiny had broken out, and in grievous indecision whether to take the skipper’s part or assist in cutting his throat. The crew tumbled up the hatchway, and blundered about the deck, asking each other absurd questions, and offering wild suggestions, if anything were really amiss, as to breaking open the spirit-room. Nay, the harbour-guard himself awoke from his nap, emerged from his sentry-box, took a turn on the quay, hailing loudly, and receiving no answer, was satisfied he had been dreaming, so swore and turned in again.

Captain George reloaded his pistol, and sang out lustily, “Man overboard! Show a light on the deck there, and heave a rope over the side. Bear a hand to haul him in, the lubber! I don’t much think he’ll want to try that game in a hurry again!”

Meanwhile, hapless Slap-Jack was incapacitated for the present from that, or indeed any other game involving physical effort. A plank, falling with him out of the boat, had struck him on the head and stunned him; seventy fathom of water would have floated him no better than seven, and with the first plunge he went down like a stone. Captain George had intended to give him a fright and a ducking; but now, while he stretched his body out of the cabin window, peering over the gloomy water and listening eagerly for the snort and gasp of a swimmer who never came up, he wished with all his heart that his hand had been less steady on the pistol.

Fortunately, however, Beaudésir, after he had fulfilled the Captain’s orders by personating him at the hold, remained studiously on watch. It was a peculiarity of this man that his faculties seemed always on the stretch, as is often to be observed with those over whom some constant dread impends, or who suffer from the tortures of remorse. At the moment he heard the shot, he sprang to the side, threw off hat and cloak, as if anticipating danger, and kept his eyes eagerly fixed on the water, ready, if need be, for a pounce. The tide was still flowing, the brigantine’s head lay to seaward, where all was dark, and fortunately the little light on the ruffled surface was towards the shore. Slap-Jack’s inanimate form was carried inwards by the flood, and crossed the moorings of that huge red buoy which Eugène remembered gazing on listlessly in the morning. Either the contact with its rope woke an instinctive consciousness in the drowning man, or some swirl of the water below brought his body to the surface, but for a few seconds Slap-Jack’s form became dimly visible, heaving like a wisp of seaweed on a wave. In those few seconds Eugène dashed overboard, cleaving the water to reach him with the long springing strokes of a powerful swimmer.

A drowning man is not to be saved but at the imminent risk of his life who goes in for the rescue, and this gallant feat indeed can only be accomplished by a thorough proficient in the art; so on the present occasion it was well that Beaudésir felt as much at home in the water as on dry land.

How the crew cheered the Frenchman while he was hauled on board with his dripping burden; how the two Jacks who had remained in the brigantine, and were now thoroughly sobered, vowed eternal gratitude to the landsman who had dived for their messmate; how the harbour-guard was once more disturbed by the cheering, and cheered lustily in reply; how Captain George clapped his comrade on the shoulder while he took him below to change his wet garments, and vowed he was fit to be King of France, adding, with a meaning smile, “If ever I go to school again, I’ll ask them to give me a berth at Avranches in Normandy!”—all this it is unnecessary to relate; but if the Captain gained the respect of the crew by the promptitude with which he resented an attempt at insubordination, the gallant self-devotion of his friend, clerk, supercargo, cabin-passenger, or whatever he was, won their affection and good-will for the rest of the voyage.

This was especially apparent about sunrise, when Captain George beat to quarters and paraded his whole crew on deck, preparatory to weighing anchor and standing out down Channel with a fair wind and a following tide. He calculated that the King’s ship, even if on watch, must be still some distance from land, and he had such implicit confidence in the sailing qualities of his brigantine that if he could only get a fair start he feared a chase from no craft that swam.

Owing to his early education and the experiences of his boyhood, notwithstanding his late career in the service of King Louis, he was a seaman at heart. In nothing more so than a tendency to idealise the craft he commanded as if it were a living creature, endowed with feelings and even reason. For him ‘The Bashful Maid,’ with her exquisite trim, her raking masts, her graceful spars, her long fluttering pennon, and her elaborately-carved figure-head, representing a brazen-faced beauty baring her breast boastfully to the breeze, was less a triumph of design and carpentering, of beams, and blocks, and yarn, and varnish, and tar, than a metaphorical mistress, to be cajoled, commanded, humoured, trusted, above all, admired. He spoke of her as possessing affections, caprices, impulses, and self-will. When she answered her helm steadily, and made good weather of it, in a stiff breeze and a heavy sea, she was “behaving admirably”—“she liked the job”—“a man had only to trust her, and give her a new coat of paint now and then, she’d never fail him—not she!” While, on the other hand, she might dive and plunge, and dip her boltsprit in the brine, shipping seas that swept her decks fore and aft, and she was “only a trifle saucy, the beauty! Carried a weather-helm like the rest of her sex, and must be humoured a bit, till she came round!”

As was the skipper, so were the crew. All these different natures, men of various nations, dispositions, and characters, were equally childlike in their infatuation about ‘The Bashful Maid.’ The densest of them had imagination enough to invest her with a thousand romantic qualities; even the negro would have furiously resented a word in her disparagement—nay, the three newly-shipped Jacks themselves, men of weighty authority in such matters, caught the infection, and were ready to swear by the brigantine, while it was yet so dark they could scarcely see whether she was a three-masted merchantman or a King’s cutter.

But when the breeze freshened towards sunrise, and the tide was once more on the turn, the regard thus freely accorded to their ship was largely shared by their new shipmate. Beaudésir, passing forward in the grey light of morning, truth to tell moved only by the restlessness of a man not yet accustomed to perpetual motion, accompanied by the odours of bilge-water and tar, was greeted with admiring glances and kind words from all alike. Dutchman, Swede, Spaniard, vied with each other in expressions of good-will. Slap-Jack was still below, swaddled in blankets, but his two comrades had tumbled up with the first streaks of dawn, and were loud in their praises, Bottle-Jack vowing Captain Kidd would have made him first-lieutenant on the spot for such a feat, and Smoke-Jack, with more sincerity than politeness, declaring “he couldn’t have believed it of a Frenchman!” Nay, the very negro, showing all his teeth as if he longed to eat him, embarked on an elaborate oration in his honour, couched partly in his native language as spoken on the Gold Coast, partly in a dialect he believed to be English, obscured by metaphor, though sublime doubtless in conception, and prematurely cut short by the shrill whistle of the boatswain, warning all hands without delay to their quarters.

It was an enlivening sight, possessing considerable attractions for such a temperament as Beaudésir’s. The clear gap of morning low down on the horizon was widening and spreading every moment over the sky; the breeze, cold and bracing, not yet tempered by the coming sun, freshened sensibly off shore, driving out to sea a grand procession of dark rolling clouds, moving steadily and continuously westward before the day. The lighthouse off the harbour showed like a column of chalk against the dull background of this embankment, vanishing so imperceptibly into light; while to landward, far beyond the low level line of coast, a faint quiver of purple already mingled with the dim grey outline of the smooth and swelling downs.

In harbour, human life had not yet woke up, but the white sea-birds were soaring and dipping, and wheeling joyously on the wing. The breeze whistled through the tackle, the waves leaped and lashed merrily against her sides, and the crew of the brigantine took their places, clean, well dressed, brown-faced, and bare-footed, on her deck. While the boatswain, who from sheer habit cast an eye continually aloft, observed her truck catch the first gleams of the morning sun, Captain George, carefully attired, issued from his cabin with a telescope under his arm, and made his first and last oration to the crew.

“My lads!” said he, “I’ve beat to quarters, this fine morning, before I get my anchor up, because I want to say a few words to you, and the sooner we understand each other the better! You’ve heard I’m a soldier. So I am! That’s right enough; but, mark, you! I dipped my hand in the tar-bucket before I was old enough to carry a sword; so don’t you ever think to come over me with skulking, for I’ve seen that game played out before. Mind you, I don’t believe I’ve got a skulker on board; if I have, let him step forward and show himself. Over the side he goes, and I sail without him! Now, my lads, I know _my_ duty and I know _yours_. I’ll take care both are done. I’ll have no grumbling and no quarrelling. If any man has a complaint to make, let him come to me, and out with it. A quarrelsome chap with his messmates is generally a shy cock when you put him down to fight. I’ll have man-of-war’s discipline aboard. You all know what that is, and those that don’t like it must lump it. Last night there were three of you tried to take French leave and to steal my boat; I stopped that game with a little friend I keep in my belt. Look ye, my sons, next bout I’ll cover the _man_ instead of the tackle! I know who they are, well enough, but I mean to forget as soon as ever the anchor’s up. I’ll have a clean bill of health to take out into blue water. Now, my lads, attend to me! We’ve a long cruise before us, but we’ve a craft well-provisioned, well-found, and, I heartily believe, well-manned. Whatever prizes we take, whatever profit we make on the cargo, from skipper to ship’s boy, every one shall have his share according to the articles hung up in my cabin. We _may_ have to fight, and we may _not_; it’s the last job you’re likely to shirk; but mind this—_one_ skipper’s enough for _one_ ship. I’ll have no _lawyer_ sail with _me_, and no opinions ‘whether or no’ before the mast. If you think of disobeying orders, just remember it’s a short walk from my berth to the powder-room, and the clink of a flint will square all accounts between captain and crew. If I’m not to be skipper, nobody else shall, and what I say I mean. Lastly, no man is to get drunk except in port. And now, my lads, here’s a fair wind, and a following tide! Before we get the fiddle up for a ‘Stamp and go, cheerily ho!’ we’ll give three cheers for ‘The Bashful Maid,’ and then shake out every rag of canvas and make a good run while the breeze holds!”

The men cheered with a will. The Captain’s notions of sea-oratory were founded on a knowledge of his audience, and answered his purpose better than the most finished style of rhetoric. As the shouting died out, a strong voice was heard, demanding “one cheer more for the skipper.” It was given enthusiastically—Slap-Jack, who had sneaked on deck with his head bandaged, having taken this sailor-like method of showing he bore no malice for a ducking, and was indeed only desirous that his late prank should be overlooked. Nevertheless, in the hurry and confusion of getting the anchor up, he contrived to place himself at Beaudésir’s side and to grasp him cordially by the hand.

“You _be_ a good chap,” said this honest seaman, with a touch of feeling that he hid under an affectation of exceeding roughness; “as good a chap as ever broke a biscuit! Look ye, mate; my name’s Slap-Jack; so long as I can show my number, when anything’s up, you sings out ‘Slap-Jack!’ and if I don’t answer ‘Slap-Jack _it is_!’ why―”

The imprecation with which this peculiar acknowledgment concluded did not render it one whit more intelligible to Beaudésir, who gathered enough, however, from the speaker’s vehemence to feel that he had made at least one stanch friend among the crew. By the time he had realised this consoling fact, the brigantine’s head, released from the restraint of her cable, swung round to leeward, her strong new sails filled steadily with the breeze, and while the ripple gurgled louder and louder round her bows, already tossing and plunging through the increasing swell, the quay, the lighthouse, the long low spit of land, the town, the downs themselves seemed to glide quietly away; and Beaudésir, despite the beauty of the scene and the excitement of his position, became uncomfortably conscious of a strange desire to retire into a corner, lay himself down at full length, and die, if need be, unobserved.

A waft of savoury odours from the cook’s galley, where the men’s breakfasts were prepared, did nothing towards allaying this untimely despondency, and after a short struggle he yielded, as people always do yield in such cases, and staggering into the cabin, pillowed his head on a couch, and gave himself over to despair.

Ere he raised it again ‘The Bashful Maid,’ making an excellent run down Channel in a south-westerly course, was already a dozen leagues out at sea.