Chapter 33

TOM TULLY ACTS AS GUIDE.

Lieutenant Lipscombe's eye had grown rapidly better, and his temper rapidly worse. He had grumbled at Chips for being so long over his task of repairing the deck and hatchway, and Chips had responded by leaving off to sharpen his tools, after which he had diligently set traps to catch his superior officer, who never went near the carpenter without running risks of laming himself by treading upon nails half buried in the deck, or being knocked down by pieces of wood delicately poised upon one end so that the slightest touch would send them over with a crash.

Chips never trod upon the upright nails, cut himself against the tools, or touched the pieces of wood or planks to make them fall. He moved about slowly, like a bear, and somehow seemed to be charmed; but it was different with the lieutenant: he never went near to grumble without putting his foot straight upon the first upright clout-nail, or leaning his arm or hand upon some ticklishly-balanced piece of plank. The consequences were that he was several times a good deal hurt, and then Chips seemed exceedingly sorry, and said he was.

But the lieutenant forgot his little accidents next day, and went straight to the carpenter, bullied him again, and after bearing it for awhile Chips's adze would become so blunt that he was obliged to go off to the grindstone, where he would stop for a couple of hours, a good deal of which time was spent in oiling the spindle before he began.

At last, though he was obliged to finish his task, and after waiting for the deck to be done as the time when he would go straight into harbour and report Hilary's desertion, as he persisted in calling it, Lieutenant Lipscombe concluded that he would not go, but give the young officer a chance to come back.

Meanwhile he had cruised about, chased and boarded vessels without there being the slightest necessity, put in at one or two places where he heard rumours that the Young Pretender was expected to land off the coast somewhere close at hand, heard the report contradicted at the next place he touched at, and then went cruising up and down once more.

One day he chased and boarded a lugger that bore despatches from France to certain emissaries in England; but the lieutenant did not find the despatches, only some dried fish, which he captured and had conveyed on board the cutter.

His men grumbled, and said that Master Leigh ought to be found, and there was some talk of petitioning the lieutenant to form another expedition in search of the missing man; but the lieutenant had no intention of going ashore in the dark to get his men knocked about by invisible foes without the prospect of a grand haul of prize-money at the end; so he turned a deaf ear to all suggestions for such a proceeding, and kept on cruising up and down.

"I tell you what it is," said Tom Tully on the evening of Hilary's escape, as the men were all grouped together in the forecastle enjoying a smoke and a yarn or two, "it strikes me as we're doing a wonderful lot o' good upon this here station. What do you say, Jack Brown?"

"Wonderful!" said the boatswain, falling into the speaker's sarcastic vein.

"Ah!" said Chips, "we shall never get all our prize-money spent, boys."

"No," said the corporal of marines, "never. I say, speaking as a orsifer, oughtn't we to have another one in place of Master Leigh?"

"No," said Tom Tully. "We couldn't get another like he."

"That's a true word, Tommy," said Billy Waters, who did not often agree with the big sailor. "We couldn't get another now he's lost."

"But that's all werry well," said Chips; "but it won't do. If I lost my adze or caulking-hammer overboard, I must have another, mustn't I?" No one answered, and he continued:

"If you lost the rammer of the big gun, Billy Waters, or the corporal here hadn't got his bayonet, he'd want a new one; so why shouldn't we have a new orsifer?"

"Don't know," said Billy Waters gruffly; and as the carpenter looked at each in turn, the men all shook their heads, and then they all smoked in silence.

"I wishes as we could find him again," said Tom Tully; "and as he'd chuck the skipper overboard, or send him afloat in the dinghy, and command the cutter hisself, and I don't kear who tells the luff as I said it."

"No one ain't going to tell on you, Tommy," said Billy Waters reprovingly; for the big sailor had looked defiantly round, and ended by staring him defiantly in the face. "We all wishes as the young chap could be found, and that he was back aboard; and I think as it ought to be all reported and another expedition sent."

There was a growl of approval at this as there had been before when similar ideas were promulgated; but the lieutenant sat in his cabin, and nothing was done.

The lights were burning brightly, and as it was a dead calm the anchor had been let go, so that the cutter should not be swept along the coast by the racing tide. The night had come on very dark since the moon had set, and the watch scanned the surface of the sea in an idle mood, that task being soon done, for there was very little sea visible to scan, and, coming to the conclusion that it was a night when they would be able to watch just as well with their ears, they made themselves comfortable and gazed longingly at the shore.

There was nothing to tempt them there but that it _was_ shore, and they would have preferred being there to loitering on shipboard, though there was not so much as a cottage light to be seen from where they lay.

A large lugger propelled by a dozen sweeps passed them in the darkness, but so silently that they did not hear so much as the splash of an oar, and a drowsy feeling seemed to pervade the whole crew.

"I'll be bound to say if we was to set up a song with a good rattling chorus he'd kick up a row," said Billy Waters, getting up from where he was seated upon the deck, going to the side, and leaning over. "For my