Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 401, March 1849

Jacobs looked at my cap and epaulette, and gave out his breath in a whistle, the only other sign of astonishment being, that he let go his unaccountable-looking piece of cord. "Lord bless me, Master Ned!" said he – "I axes pardon, Lieutenant Collins, your honour!" "Glad you know me this time, Bob, my lad," said I, looking round, – "and a comfortable berth you've got of it, I daresay. But what the deuce are you about in there? You haven't a savage too, like some friends of yours I fell in with a short time ago! Or perhaps a lion or a tiger, eh, Jacobs?" "No, no, your honour – lions be blowed!" replied he, laughing, but fiddling with his hands all the while, and standing between me and the room, as if half ashamed. "'Tis ownly the tiller-ropes of a small craft I am left in charge of, sir. But won't ye sit down, your honour, till such time as my old 'ooman comes aboard to relieve me, sir? Here's a cheer, and maybe you'd make so free for to take a pipe of prime cavendish, your honour?" "Let's have a look into your cabin, though, Bob my man," said I, curious to know what was the secret; when all at once a tremendous squall from within let me sufficiently into it. The sailor had been rocking the cradle, with a fine little fellow of a baby in it, and a line made fast to keep it in play when he served the shop. "All the pitch 's in the fire now, your honour," said he, looking terribly non-plussed; "I've broached him to, and he's all aback till his mammy gets a hold of him." "A good pipe the little rogue's got though," said I, "and a fine child he is, Jacobs – do for a bo'sun yet." "Why, yes, sir," said he, rubbing his chin with a gratified smile, as the urchin kicked, threw out his arms, and roared like to break his heart; "I'm thinking he's a sailor all over, by natur', as one may say. He don't like a calm no more nor myself; but that's the odds of bein' ashore, where you needs to keep swinging the hammocks by hand, instead of havin' it done for you, sir." In the midst of the noise, however, we were caught by the sudden appearance of Mistress Jacobs herself – a good-looking young woman, with a market-basket full of bacon and greens, and a chubby little boy holding by her apron, who came through the shop. The first thing she did was to catch up the baby out of the cradle, and begin hushing it, after one or two side-glances of reproach at her husband, who attempted to cover his disgrace by saying, "Betsy, my girl, where's your manners? why don't you off hats to the leftenant? – it's my wife, your honour." Mrs Jacobs curtseyed twice very respectfully, though not particularly fond of the profession, as I found afterwards; and I soon quite gained her smiles and good graces by praising her child, with the remark that he was too pretty ever to turn out a sailor; for, sharp as mothers are to detect this sort of flattery to anybody else's bantling, you always find it take wonderfully with respect to their own. Whenever Jacobs and I were left to ourselves, I struck at once into my scheme – the more readily for feeling I had the weather-hand of him in regard of his late appearance. It was too ridiculous, the notion of one of the best foretopmen that ever passed a weather-earing staying at home to rock his wife's cradle and attend the shop; and he was evidently aware of it as I went on. It was a little selfish, I daresay, and Mrs Jacobs would perhaps have liked me none the better for it; but I proposed to him to get a berth in the Indiaman, sail with me for Bombay, and stand by for a foul hitch in something or other. "Why, sir," said he, "it shan't be said of Bob Jacobs he were ever the man to hang back where a matter was to be done that must be done. I doesn't see the whole bearings of it as yet, but ounly you give the orders, sir, and I'll stick to 'em." "'Tis a long stretch between this and Bombay, Jacobs," said I, "and plenty of room for chances." "Ay, ay, sir, no doubt," said he, "ye can talk the length of the best bower cable." "More than that, Bob my lad," said I, "I know these Company men; if they once get out of their regular jog, they're as helpless as a pig adrift on a grating; and before they grow used to sailing out of convoy, with no frigates to whip them in, depend upon it Mother Carey19 will have to teach them a new trick or two." "Mayhap, sir," put in Jacobs, doubtfully, "the best thing 'ud be if they cast the ship away altogether, as I've seen done myself for the matter of an insurance. Ye know, sir, they lets it pass at Lloyd's now the war's over, seein' it brings custom to the underwriters, if so be ounly it don't come over often for the profits. Hows'ever it needs a good seaman to choose his lee-shore well, no doubt." "Oh!" answered I, laughing, "but the chances are, all hands would want to be Robinson Crusoe at once! No, no, – only let's get aboard, and take things as they come." "What's the ship's name, sir?" inquired Jacobs, sinking his voice, and looking cautiously over his shoulder toward the door. "The Seringapatam, – do you know her?" I said. "Ay, ay, sir, well enough," said he, readily, – "a lump of a ship she is, down off Blackwall in the stream with two more – country-built, and tumbles home rather much from below the plank-sheer for a sightly craft, besides being flat in the eyes of her, and round in the counter, just where she shouldn't, sir. Them Parchee Bombay ship-wrights does clap on a lot of onchristien flummeries and gilt mouldings, let alone quarter-galleries fit for the king's castle!" "In short, she's tea-waggon all over," said I, "and just as slow and as leewardly, to boot, as teak can make her?" "Her lines is not that bad, though, your honour," continued Jacobs, "if you just knocked off her poop, – and she'd bear a deal o' beating for a sea-boat. They've got a smart young mate, too; for I seed him t'other day a-sending up the yards, and now she's as square as a frigate, all ready to drop down river." The short and long of it was, that I arranged with my old shipmate, who was fully bent on the cruise, whether Mrs Jacobs should approve or not, that, somehow or other, we should both ship our hammocks on board of the Seringapatam – he before the mast, and I wherever I could get. On going to the agent's, however – which I did as soon as I could change my uniform for plain clothes – I found, to my great disappointment, from a plan of the accommodations, that not only were the whole of the poop-cabins taken, but those on the lower-deck also. Most of the passengers, I ascertained, were ladies, with their children and nurses, going back to India, and raw young cadets, with a few commercial and civilian nondescripts; there were no troops or officers, and room enough, except for one gentleman having engaged the entire poop, at an immense expense, for his own use. This I, of course, supposed was the Nabob, but the clerk was too close to inform me. "You must try another ship, sir," said he, coolly, as he shut the book. "Sorry for it, but we have another to sail in a fortnight. A.1, sir; far finer vessel – couple of hundred tons larger – and sails faster." "You be hanged!" muttered I, walking out; and a short time after I was on board. The stewards told me as much again; but on my slipping a guinea into the fingers of one, he suddenly recollected there was a gentleman in state-room No. 14, starboard side of the main skylight, who, being alone, might perhaps be inclined to take a chum, if I dealt with him privately. "Yankee, sir, he is," said the steward, by way of a useful hint. However, I didn't need the warning: at sight of the individual's long nose, thin lips, and sallow jaw-bones, without a whisker on his face, and his shirt-collar turned down, as he sat overhauling his traps beside the carronade, which was tethered in the state-room, with its muzzle through the port. He looked a good deal like a jockey beside his horse; or, as a wit of a schoolboy cadet said afterwards, the Boston gentleman calling himself Daniel Snout, Esquire – like Daniel praying in the lion's den, and afraid it might turn round or roar. I must say the idea didn't quite delight me, nor the sight of a fearful quantity of luggage which was stowed up against the bulkhead; but after introducing myself, and objecting to the first few offers, I at last concluded a bargain with the American for a hundred and twenty guineas, which, he remarked, was "considerable low, I prognosticate, mister!" "However," said he, "I expect you're a conversationable individual a little: I allowed for that, you know, mister. One can't do much of a trade at sea – that's a fact; and I calculate we'll swap information by the way. I'm water-pruff, I tell you, as all our nation is. You'll not settle at Bumbay, I reckon, mister?" But though I meant to pay my new messmate in my own coin at leisure afterwards, and be as frank and open as day with him – the only way to meet a Yankee – I made off at present as fast as possible to bring my things aboard, resolving to sleep at Blackwall, and then to stow myself out of sight for sick, until there was somebody to take off the edge of his confounded talk.

Next afternoon, accordingly, I found myself once more afloat, the Indiaman dropping down with the first breeze. The day after, she was running through the Downs with it pretty strong from north-east, a fair wind – the pilot-boat snoring off close-hauled to windward, with a white spray over her nose; and the three dungaree topsails of the Seringapatam lifting and swelling, as yellow as gold, over her white courses in the blue Channel haze. The breeze freshened, till she rolled before it, and everything being topsy-turvy on deck, the lumber in the way, the men as busy as bees setting her ship-shape – it would have been as much as a passenger's toes were worth to show them from below; so that I was able to keep by myself, just troubling my seamanship so much as to stand clear of the work. Enjoy it I did, too; by Jove, the first sniff of the weather was enough to make me forget what I was there for. I was every now and then on the point of fisting a rope, and singing out with the men; till at length I thought it more comfortable, even for me, to run up the mizen shrouds when everybody was forward, where I stowed myself out of sight in the cross-trees.

About dusk, while I was waiting to slip down, a stronger puff than ordinary made them clue up the mizen-royal from deck, which I took upon myself to furl off-hand – quick enough to puzzle a couple of boys that came aloft for the purpose, especially as, in the mean time, I had got down upon the topsail-yardarm out of their notice. When they got on deck again, I heard the little fellows telling some of the men, in a terrified sort of way, how the mizen-royal had either stowed itself, or else it was Dick Wilson's ghost, that fell off the same yard last voyage, – more by token, he used always to make fast the gaskets just that fashion. At night, however, the wind having got lighter, with half moonlight, there was a muster of some passengers on deck, all sick and miserable, as they tried to keep their feet, and have the benefit of air, – the Yankee being as bad as the worst. I thought it wouldn't do for me to be altogether free, and accordingly stuck fast by Mr Snout, with my head over the quarter-deck bulwarks, looking into his face, and talking away to him, asking all sorts of questions about what was good for sea-sickness, then giving a groan to prevent myself laughing, when the spray splashed up upon his "water-pruff" face, he responding to it as Sancho Panza did to Don Quixote, when the one examined the other's mouth after a potion. All he could falter out was, how he wondered I could speak at all when sick. "Oh! oh dear!" said I, with another howl. "Yes, – 'tis merely because I can't think! And I daresay you are thinking so much you can't talk– the sea is so full of meditation, as Lord Byron – Oh – oh – this water will be the death of me!" "I feel as if – the whole – tarnation Atlantic was – inside of my bowls!" gasped he through his nostrils. "Oh!" I could not help putting in, as the ship and Mr Snout both gave a heave up, "and coming out of you!"

During all this time I had felt so sure of my ground as scarcely to trouble myself about the Bengal judge and his fairy treasure of a daughter; only in the midst of the high spirits brought up by the breeze, I hugged myself now and then at the thought of their turning out by degrees as things got settled, and my having such openings the whole voyage through as one couldn't miss in four or five months. Nobody would suspect the raw chap I looked, with smooth hair and a high collar, of any particular cue: I must say there was a little vanity at the bottom of it, but I kept thinking more and more how snug and quietly I'd enjoy all that went on, sailing on one tack with the passengers and the old Nabob himself, and slipping off upon the other when I could come near the charming young Lota. The notion looks more like what some scamp of a reefer, cruising ashore, would have hit upon, than suits my taste now-a-days; but the cockpit had put a spice of the imp in me, which I never got clear of till this very voyage, as you shall see, if we get through with the log of it. 'Twas no use, as I found, saying what one should have to do, except put heart into it, – with wind, sea, and a love affair to manage all at once, after making a tangled coil instead of one all clear and above-board.

The first time I went down into the cuddy was that evening to tea, where all was at sixes and sevens like the decks; the lamps ill trimmed, stewards out of the way, and a few lads trying to bear up against their stomachs by the help of brandy and biscuits. The main figure was a jolly-looking East Indian, an indigo-planter as he turned out, with a bald forehead, a hook nose, and his gills covered with white whiskers that gave him all the cut of a cockatoo. He had his brown servant running about on every hand, and, being an old stager, did his best to cheer up the rest; but nothing I saw showed the least sign of the party I looked after. I was sure I ought to have made out something of them by this time, considering the stir such a grandee as Sir Charles Hyde would cause aboard: in fact, there didn't seem to be many passengers in her, and I began to curse the lying scoundrel of a Kitmagar for working "Tom Cox's traverse" on me, and myself for being a greater ass than I'd fancied. Indeed I heard the planter mention by chance that Sir Charles Hyde, the district judge, had come home last voyage from India in this very Seringapatam, which no doubt, I thought, put the Mahommedan rascal up to his trick.

I was making up my mind to an Indian trip, and the pure pleasure of Daniel Catoson Snout, Esquire's company for two blessed months, when all of a sudden I felt the ship bring her wind a-quarter, with a furious plunge of the Channel water along her bends, that made every landsman's bowels yearn as if he felt it gurgle through him. One young fellow, more drunk than sick, gave a wild bolt right over the cuddy table, striking out with both arms and legs as if afloat, so as to sweep half of the glasses down on the floor. The planter, who was three cloths in the wind himself, looked down upon him with a comical air of pity as soon as he had got cushioned upon the wreck. "My dear fellow," said he, "what do you feel – eh?" "Feel, you – old blackguard!" stammered the griffin, "de – dam – dammit, I feel everything! Goes through – through my vitals as if – I was a con – founded whale! C – can't stand it!" "You've drunk yourself aground, my boy!" sung out the indigo man; "stuck fast on the coral – eh? Never mind, we'll float you off, only don't flounder that way with your tail! – by Jove, you scamp, you've ruined my toe – oh dear!" I left the planter hopping round on one pin, and holding the gouty one in his hand, betwixt laughing and crying: on deck I found the floating Nab Light bearing broad on our lee-bow, with Cumberland Fort glimmering to windward, and the half moon setting over the Isle of Wight, while we stood up for Portsmouth harbour. The old captain, and most of the officers, were on the poop for the first time, though as stiff and uncomfortable from the sort of land-sickness and lumber-qualms that sailors feel till things are in their places, as the landsmen did until things were out of them. The skipper walked the weather side by himself and said nothing: the smart chief officer sent two men, one after another, from the wheel for "cows" that didn't know where their tails were; and as for the middies, they seemed to know when to keep out of the way. In a little, the spars of the men-of-war at Spithead were to be seen as we rose; before the end of the first watch, we were running outside the Spit Buoy, which was nodding and plashing with the tide in the last slant of moonshine, till at last we rounded to, and down went the anchor in five fathoms, off the Motherbank. What the Indiaman wanted at Portsmouth I didn't know; but, meantime, I had given up all hopes of the Nabob being in her, and the only question with me was, whether I should take the opportunity of giving all hands the slip here, even though I left my Yankee friend disconsolate, and a clear gainer by dollars beyond count.

Early next morning there were plenty of wherries looking out for fares; so, as the Indiaman was not to sail before the night-ebb, when the breeze would probably spring up fair again, I hailed one of them to go ashore at the Point, for a quiet stroll over Southsea Common, where I meant to overhaul the whole bearings of the case, and think if it weren't better to go home, and wait the Admiralty's pleasure for a ship. I hadn't even seen anything of Jacobs, and the whole hotel-keeping ways of the Indiaman began to disgust me, or else I should have at once decided to take the chance of seeing Lota Hyde somehow or other in India; but, again, one could scarcely endure the notion of droning on in a frigate without so much as a Brest lugger to let drive at. It was about six o'clock; the morning gun from the guard-ship off the Dockyard came booming down through the harbour, the blue offing shone like silver, and the green tideway sparkled on every surge, up to where they were flashing and poppling on the copper of the frigates at Spithead. I noticed them crossing yards and squaring; the farthest out hove up anchor, loosed fore-topsail, cast her head to starboard, and fired a gun as she stood slowly out to sea under all sail, with a light air freshening abeam. The noble look of her almost reconciled me of itself to the service, were it for the mere sake of having a share in driving such a craft between wind and water. Just then, however, an incident turned up in spite of me, which I certainly didn't expect, and which had more, even than I reckoned at the time, to do with my other adventure; seeing that it made me, both then and afterwards, do the direct opposite of what I meant to do, and both times put a new spoke in my wheel, as we say at sea here.

I had observed a seventy-four, the Stratton, lying opposite the Spit Buoy; on board of which, as the waterman told me, a court-martial had been held the day before, where they broke a first lieutenant for insulting his captain. Both belonged to one of the frigates: the captain I had seen, and heard of as the worst tyrant in the navy; his ship was called "a perfect hell afloat;" that same week one of the boys had tried to drown himself alongside, and a corporal of marines, after coming ashore and drinking a glass with his sweetheart, had coolly walked down to the Point, jumped in between two boats at the jetty, and kept himself under water till he was dead. The lieutenant had been dismissed the service, and as I recognised the name, I wondered whether it could actually be my schoolfellow, Tom Westwood, as gallant a fellow and as merry as ever broke biscuit. Two sail-boats, one from around the Stratton's quarter, and the other from over by Gosport, steering on the same tack for Southsea, diverted my attention as I sauntered down to the beach. The bow of the nearest wherry grounded on the stones as I began to walk quicker towards the town-gates, chiefly because I was pretty ready for an early breakfast at the old Blue Posts, and also because I had a slight notion of what these gentlemen wanted on Southsea Beach at odd hours. Out they jumped, however – one man in naval undress, another, a captain, in full fig, the third, a surgeon – coming right athwart my course to bring me to. The first I almost at once remembered for the notorious captain of the Orestes, or N'Oreste, as the midshipmen called her, from her French build and her character together. "Hallo, you sir!" said the other captain decidedly, "you must stand still." "Indeed!" said I; "and why so, if you please?" "Since you are here, we don't intend allowing you to pass for some few minutes." "And what if I should do as I choose, sir?" I asked. "If you stir two steps, sir, I shall shoot you!" replied the captain, who was one of the bullying school. "Oh, very well," I said, rather confounded by his impertinence, "then I shall stay;" and I accordingly stood stock-still, with my arms folded, until the other boat landed its party of two. They were in plain clothes; nor did I give them any particular attention till the seconds had stationed their men, when the captain of the Orestes had his back to me, and his antagonist stood directly facing. As his pale resolved features came out before me with the morning sun on them, his lips together, and his nostrils large, I recognised my old friend Westwood. The captain had broke him the day before, and now he had accepted his challenge, being a known dead shot, while the lieutenant had never fired a bullet in cold blood: there was, no doubt, a settled purpose in the tyrant to crush the first man that had dared to thwart his will. Westwood's second came forward and mentioned to the other that his friend was still willing to withdraw the words spoken in first heat, and would accordingly fire in the air. "Coward!" shouted the captain of the Orestes immediately; "I shall shoot you through the heart!" "Sir!" said I to his second, "I will not look on; and if that gentleman is shot, I will be witness against you both as murderers!" I dropped down behind a stone out of the line of fire, and to keep my eyes off the devilish piece of work, though my blood boiled to knock the fellow down that I was speaking to. Another minute, and the suspense was too great for me to help looking up: just at that moment I saw how set Westwood's face was: he was watching his enemy with an eye that showed to me what the other's must be – seeking for his life. The seconds gave the word to each other in the middle, and dropped two white handkerchiefs at once with their hands together; I caught the flash of Westwood's pistol, when, to my astonishment, I saw the captain of the Orestes next moment jerk up his arm betwixt me and the sky, fire in the air, and slowly fall back – he was dead! – shot through the heart. One glance at his face gave you a notion of the devilish meaning he had had; but what was my surprise when his second walked up to Westwood, and said to him, "Sir, you are the murderer of Captain Duncombe; – my friend fired in the air as you proposed." "You are mistaken, sir," answered Westwood, coldly; "Captain Duncombe sought my life, and I have used the privilege of self-defence." "The surgeon is of my opinion," said the other; "and I am sorry to say that we cannot allow you to depart." "I shall give myself up to the authorities at once," said Westwood. "We have only your word for that, which I must be permitted, in such a case, to doubt," replied the captain, whose evident wish was to detain Westwood by force or threats while he sent off his surgeon. The worst of it was, as I now found, that since the court-martial and the challenge, an admiralty order had arrived, in consideration of several gallant acts during the war, as well as private representation, restoring him to the service: so that he had in fact called out and shot his superior officer. As for the charge now brought forward, it was too absurd for any to believe it, unless from rage or prejudice; the case was bad enough, at any rate, without it.

In the mean time I had exchanged a word or two with Westwood's friend; after which, lifting up a second pistol which lay on the sand, I went up to the captain. "Sir," said I, "you used the freedom, a little ago, of forcing me into your concerns, and I have seen the end of it. I have now got to tell you, having watched your conduct, that either you must submit to be made fast here for a bit, else, by the God that made me, I'll shoot you through the head!" The captain looked at me, his surgeon sidled up to him, and, being a man near my own size, he suddenly tried to wrench the pistol out of my hands: however, I had him the next moment under my knee, while Westwood's second secured the little surgeon, and took a few round sea-turns about his wrists and ancles with a neckerchief. My companion then gave me a hand to do the same with his superior officer – the medico all the time singing out like a bull, and the captain threatening – while the dead body lay stark and stiff behind us, the eyes wide, the head down, and the breast up, the hand clenching a pistol, just as he had fallen. Westwood stood quite unconscious of everything we did, only he seemed to be watching the knees drawn up as they stiffened, and the sand-flies hovering about the mouth. "Shall we clap a stopper between their teeth?" said the second to me – he had been at sea, but who he was I never knew – "the surgeon will be heard on the walls, he bellows so!" "Never mind," said I, "we'll just drop them beyond tide-mark – the lee of the stones yonder." In fact, from the noise the tide was making, I question if the shots could have been heard even by the watermen, who had prudently sheered out of sight round a point. I couldn't help looking, when we had done this, from the captain's body to his own frigate, as she was sluing round head on to us, at single anchor, to the turn of tide, with her buoy dancing on the brisk blue sweep of water, and her figure-head shining in the sunlight. As soon as we covered over the corpse with dulse-weed, Westwood started as if we had taken something away from him, or freed him of a spell. "Westwood!" said I, laying my hand on his shoulder, "you must come along with me." He said nothing, but followed us quietly round to the wherries, where I told the watermen that the other party had gone a different way to keep clear, and we wanted them to pull for Gosport. At Gosport we had Westwood rigged out in black clothes, his hair cropped, and whiskers shaved off – as I thought it the fittest thing for his case, and what he could best carry out, to go aboard of the Indiaman with me as if he were a missionary. Poor fellow! he didn't know what he was. So, having waited till dusk, to let the watermen lose our track, and his friend having posted off for Dover, he and I both got safe over to the Seringapatam, where I had him stowed in the first empty state-room I found. I had actually forgot, through the excitement, all about my missing my first chase: from one hour to another I kept watching the tide-marks ashore, and the dog-vane on the ship's quarter, all impatience to hear the word given for "all hands up anchor," and hoping our worthy friends on Southsea Beach were still within hearing of the Channel flood. At last the order did come; round went the capstan merrily enough, till she had hove short and up; the anchor was catted, and off went the lumbering old craft through the Solent about midnight, before a fine rattling breeze, in company with six or seven others, all running for the Needles. They were loosing the Indiaman's royals when I heard a gun from the guard-ship in harbour; and a little after up went a rocket, signalling to some frigate or other at Spithead; and away they kept at it, with lights from the telegraph to her masthead, for several minutes. "All's up!" thought I, "and both Westwood and myself are in for it!"