“Man the bars,” returned Mr. Sharpe from the quarter-deck. “Play up, fifer. Heave away.”
Out broke the merry fife, with a rhythmical tune, and tramp, tramp, tramp went a hundred and twenty feet round and round, and, with brawny chests pressed tight against the capstan bars, sixty fine fellows walked the ship up to her anchor, drowning the fife at intervals with their sturdy song, as pat to their feet as an echo:—
Heave with a will, ye jolly boys,
Heave around:
We're off from Chainee, jolly boys,
Homeward bound.
“Short stay apeak, sir,” roars the boatswain from forward.
“Unship the bars. Way aloft. Loose sails. Let fall.”
The ship being now over her anchor, and the top-sails set, the capstan bars were shipped again, the men all heaved with a will, the messenger grinned, the anchor was torn out of China with a mighty heave, and then ran up with a luff tackle and secured; the ship's head cast to port.
“Up with the jib—man the taupsle halliards—all hands make sail.” Round she came slow and majestically; the sails filled, and the good ship bore away for England.
She made the Bogue forts in three or four tacks, and there she had to come to again for another chop, China being a place as hard to get into as Heaven, and to get out of as—Chancery. At three P.M. she was at Macao, and hove to four miles from the land to take in her passengers.
A gun was fired from the forecastle. No boats came off. Sharpe began to fret; for the wind, though light, had now got to the N.W., and they were wasting it. After a while the captain came on deck, and ordered all the carronades to be scaled. The eight heavy reports bellowed the great ship's impatience across the water and out pulled two boats with the passengers. While they were coming, Dodd sent and ordered the gunner to load the carronades with shot, and secure and apron them. The first boat brought Colonel Kenealy, Mr. Fullalove, and a prodigious negro, who all mounted by the side-ropes. But the whip was rigged for the next boat, and the Honourable Mrs. Beresford and poodle hoisted on board, item her white maid, item her black nurse, item her little boy and male Oriental in charge thereof, the strangest compound of dignity and servility, and of black and white, being clad in snowy cotton and japanned to the nine.
Mrs. Beresford was the wife of a member of council in India. She had been to Macao for her boy's health, intending to return to Calcutta: but meantime her husband was made a director, and went home: so she was going to join him. A tall, handsome lady, with too curved a nose.