We wore the boat round and ran in the direction of the vessel; in three hours we were close to her; I hailed her as she came down upon us but no one appeared to hear us or see us, for she had lower studding-sails set, and there was no one forward. We hailed again, and the vessel was now within twenty yards, and we were right across her bows; a man came forward, and cried out, “Starboard your helm,” but not in sufficient time to prevent the vessel from striking the wherry, and to stave her quarter in; we dropped alongside as the wherry filled with water, and we were hauled in by the seamen over the gunwale, just as she turned over and floated away astern.
“Touch and go, my lad,” said one of the seamen who had hauled me on board.
“Why don’t you keep a better look out?” said Peggy Pearson, shaking her petticoats, which were wet up to the knees. “Paint eyes in the bows of your brig, if you haven’t any yourself. Now you’ve lost a boatful of red-herrings, eggs, and soft tommy—no bad things after a long cruise; we meant to have paid our passage with them—now you must take us for nothing.”
The master of the vessel, who was on deck, observed that I was in the uniform of an officer. He asked me how it was we were found in such a situation? I narrated what had passed in few words. He said that he was from Cadiz bound to London, and that he would put us on shore at any place up the river I would like, but that he could not lose the chance of the fair wind to land me anywhere else.
I was too thankful to be landed anywhere; and telling him that I should be very glad if he could put me on shore at Sheerness, which was the nearest place to Chatham, I asked leave to turn into one of the cabin bed-places, and was soon fast asleep.
I may as well here observe, that I had been seen by the sentry abaft to go down by the stern ladder into the boat, and when the waterman came back shortly afterwards to haul his boat up, and perceived that it had gone adrift, there was much alarm on my account. It was too dark to send a boat after us that night, but the next morning the case was reported to the admiral of the port, who directed a cutter to get under weigh and look for us.
The cutter had kept close in shore for the first day, and it was on the morning after I was picked up by the brig, that, in standing more out, she had fallen in with the wherry, bottom up. This satisfied them that we had perished in the rough night, and it was so reported to the port-admiral and to Captain Delmar, who had just come down from London.
I slept soundly till the next morning, when I found that the wind had fallen and that it was nearly calm. Peggy Pearson was on deck; she had washed herself and smoothed out with an iron the ribbons of her bonnet, and was really a very handsome young woman.
“Mr Keene,” said she, “I didn’t know your name before you told it to the skipper here; you’re in a pretty scrape. I don’t know what Jim Pearson will say when you go back, running away with his wife as you have done. Don’t you think I had better go back first, and smooth things over.”
“Oh! you laugh now,” replied I; “but you didn’t laugh the night we went adrift.”