"I trust, gentlemen, this is not the last time I shall sit in the gun-room, and that you will all consider my cabin as your own. I love to make my officers comfortable: nothing more delightful than a harmonious ship, where every man and boy is ready to go to h——l for his officers. That's what I call good fellowship—give and take—make proper allowances for one another's failings, and we shall be sorry when the time comes for us to part. I am afraid, however, that I shall not be long with you; for, though I doat upon the brig, the Duke of N—— and Lord George ——, have given the first Lord a d——d whigging for not promoting me sooner; and, between ourselves, I don't wish to go farther. My post commission goes out with me to Barbadoes."
The first lieutenant cocked his eye; and quick as were the motions of that eye, the captain, with a twist of one of his own, caught a glimpse of it, before it could be returned to its bearing on the central object, the beef-steaks, kidneys, and onions. But it passed off without remark.
"A very capital steak this! I'll trouble you for some fat and a little gravy. We'll have some jollification when we get to sea; but we must get into blue water first: then we shall have less to do. Talking of broiling steaks, when I was in Egypt, we used to broil our beef-steaks on the rocks—no occasion for fire—thermometer at 200—hot as h——l! I have seen four thousand men at a time cooking for the whole army as much as twenty or thirty thousand pounds of steaks at a time, all hissing and frying at a time—just about noon, of course, you know—not a spark of fire! Some of the soldiers, who had been brought up as glass-blowers, at Leith, swore they never saw such heat. I used to go to leeward of them for a whiff, and think of old England! Ah, that's the country, after all, where a man may think and say what he pleases! But that sort of work did not last long, as you may suppose; their eyes were all fried out, d——n me, in three or four weeks! I had been ill in my bed, for I was attached to the 72nd regiment, seventeen hundred strong. I had a party of seamen with me; but the ophthalmia made such ravages, that the whole regiment, colonel and all, went stone blind—all, except one corporal! You may stare, gentlemen, but it's very true. Well, this corporal had a precious time of it: he was obliged to lead out the whole regiment to water—he led the way, and two or three took hold of the skirts of his jacket, on each side; the skirts of these were seized again by as many more; and double the number to the last, and so all held on by one another, till they had all had a drink at the well; and, as the devil would have it, there was but one well among us all—so this corporal used to water the regiment just as a groom waters his horses; and all spreading out, you know, just like the tail of a peacock."
"Of which the corporal was the rump," interrupted the doctor.
The captain looked grave.
"You found it warm in that country?" inquired the surgeon.
"Warm!" exclaimed the captain; "I'll tell you what, doctor, when you go where you have sent many a patient, and where, for that very reason, you certainly will go, I only hope, for your sake, and for that of your profession in general, that you will not find it quite so hot as we found it in Egypt. What do you think of nineteen of my men being killed by the concentrated rays of light falling on the barrels of the sentinels' bright muskets, and setting fire to the powder? I commanded a mortar battery at Acre, and I did the French infernal mischief with the shells. I used to pitch in among them when they had sat down to dinner: but how do you think the scoundrels weathered on me at last? D——n me, they trained a parcel of poodle dogs to watch the shells when they fell, and then to run and pull the fuses out with their teeth. Did you ever hear of such d——d villains? By this means, they saved hundreds of men, and only lost half a dozen dogs—fact, by G——; only ask Sir Sydney Smith; he'll tell you the same, and a d——d sight more."
The volubility of his tongue was only equalled by the rapidity of his invention and the powers of mastication; for, during the whole of this entertaining monodrame, his teeth were in constant motion, like the traversing beam of a steam boat; and as he was our captain as well as our guest, he certainly took the lion's share of the repast.
"But, I say, Soundings," said he, addressing himself familiarly to the master, who had not been long in the vessel, "let us see what sort of stuff you have stowed the fore-hold with. You know I am a water drinker; give me only the pure limpid stream, and a child may lead me. I seldom touch liquor when the water is good." So saying, he poured out a tumbler, and held it to his nose. "Stinks like h——! I say, master, are you sure the bungs are in your casks? The cats have been contributing to the fluid. We must qualify this;" and having poured one-half of the water, which by the by was very good, he supplied the vacancy with rum. Then tasting it, he said, "Come, Miss Puss; this will rouse you out, at any rate."
A moment's pause, while he held the bumper before his eye, and then, down it went, producing no other emotion than a deep sigh. "By the by, that's well thought of—we'll have no cats in the ship (except those which the depravity of human nature unhappily compels the boatswain to use). Mr Skysail, you'll look to that. Throw them all overboard."