"Not stuck-up, I hope? Affable? I'll bet any man sixpence he was affable. Mind you, I don't speak from 'xperience," went on Mr. Wapshott, more in sorrow than in anger. "I don't dine out with Admirals of the Fleet. The Blood Royal don't invite James Wapshott to take a cup of kindness yet for auld lang syne, for auld lang syne, my dear, for auld.… You'll excuse me, sir, some little emotion; Robert Burns—Robbie—affecting beggar, mor' specially in his homelier passages. A ploughman, sir; and from Ayrshire, damme!"
"'Wee sleekit crimson-tippit beastie—'"
"'Wee sleekit crimson-tippit beastie—'"
"Are you addressing me, sir?" roared Captain Crang.
"Norratall. Field-mouse. That"—Mr. Wapshott drew himself up— "that's the 'stonishing thing about it."
"Go to your cabin, sir," the Captain commanded; "and you, Mr. What's-your-name, come below and explain yourself."
Thus, not without dignity, he withdrew from the field. But he was beaten; and in his cabin a few minutes later he capitulated. Mr. Sturge having been convinced that the ship could not be turned around and headed back for Plymouth without grave inconvenience, and perhaps detriment to his Majesty's service, it was agreed that he and his company should be packed ashore immediately on reaching Portsmouth. The question of compensation was waived by consent; though Captain Crang shrewdly expressed his hope that, whatever steps Mr. Sturge might take after consulting a solicitor, his Royal Highness would not be dragged into the affair.
In short, Mr. Sturge reappeared on deck in high spirits. He had bearded a British officer—and a formidable one—in his den and had come off victorious. He had secured his own liberty and his comrades', and (as reflection told him) a first-class advertisement to boot. Altogether, he had done very well indeed; and Mr. Jope, chastened by his own narrow escape from a situation which at one moment had promised to be serious, wisely left him all the credit of this lucky turn of affairs. Mr. Jope, who ranked next to the Captain and First Officer on the ship's executive, and actually ruled her during their indisposition, exacted no work from his prisoners; but was content to admire them from a distance—as, indeed, did the rest of the crew—retiring from time to time behind convenient shelters to hide their indecorous mirth. During the afternoon it may be said that Mr. Sturge's troupe had the deck aft of the forecastle to themselves. Being unacquainted with naval usage, they roamed the poop indifferently with the main deck, no man forbidding them, while Captain Crang and Mr. Wapshott slumbered below; the one of set purpose, in the hope of recapturing through the gates of horn, if not the complete data of last night's imbroglio, at least sufficient for a plausible defence; the other under the influence of sedatives administered by the Doctor.
"I should soon get used to this life, d'ye know?" announced Mr. Sturge, approaching the Major with a jaunty, almost extra-nautical step, and clapping him, seaman fashion, on the shoulder.
It was the hour of sunset. The Vesuvius, bowling along merrily, a bare three miles off Berry Head, had opened the warm red-sandstone cliffs of Torbay; and the Major, leaning over the larboard bulwark, gazed on the slowly moving shore in gloomy abstraction. He had been less fortunate than Mr. Sturge in his encounter with the Captain, whom he had interrupted in the act of retiring to slumber.