His qualms took flight at the prospect of fresh excitement, though the offer of breakfast was received with little enthusiasm, and he followed the Captain into his comfortable and well-furnished cabin. Here he learned that, while he was sleeping, George had hailed a fishing-boat returning warily into harbour, and, under pretence of buying fresh fish, boarded her with a bottle or two of spirits and a roll of tobacco. In ten minutes he extracted all the fisherman had to tell, and discovered that a large King’s ship was cruising in the offing, watching, as his informant opined, the very port in which they lay. Under these circumstances, Captain George considered it would be prudent to wait till midnight, when they might run out of the harbour, with wind and tide in their favour, and so showing the man-of-war a clean pair of heels, be hull-down and out of sight before sunrise.
“There’s nothing that swims can touch her in squally weather like this,” continued the Captain, “if she can get an hour’s start; and I wouldn’t mind running under his very boltsprit, in the dark, if this wind holds. My chief difficulty is about the men. There will be black looks, and something very like mutiny, if I keep them twelve more hours in sight of the beer-shops without liberty for shore. Those drunken rascals too, that we hove aboard last night, will have come to themselves by that time, and we shall perhaps have some trouble in persuading them they are here of their own free will. You must help me, Eugène, all day. Between us we must watch the crew like a cat watches a mouse. Once we’re in blue water, you’ll have nothing to do but sit in my cabin and amuse yourself.”
The skipper understood the nature of those with whom he had to deal. When the men saw no disposition to get the anchor up, when noon passed and they went to dinner as usual with the brigantine’s head pointing steadily to windward, when another tide ebbed and flowed, but failed to waft them away from the temptations of port, they began to growl freely, without however proceeding to any overt acts of insubordination, and towards evening they became pacified with the anticipation of weighing anchor before the following day. The hours passed wearily to all on board, excepting perhaps the three Jacks, who, waking simultaneously at sunrise, turned round, perfectly satisfied, to go to sleep again, and so recovered complete possession of their faculties towards the dusk of the evening.
They had been stowed away on some spare bunting outside the door of the Captain’s cabin. Their conversation, therefore, though carried on in a low tone, was distinctly audible both to him and Beaudésir, as they sat waiting for midnight and the turn of the tide.
After a few expressions of astonishment, and vague inquiries how they got there, each sailor seemed to realise his position pretty clearly and without much dissatisfaction. Bottle-Jack shrewdly suspected he was once more at the old trade. Smoke-Jack was comforted by the prospect of refilling his empty pockets, and Slap-Jack, whilst vowing eternal fidelity to Alice, seemed impressed with the flattering notion that somehow his own attractions and the good taste of the Admiral’s daughter were at the bottom of it all.
The craft, they agreed, was a likely one, the fittings ship-shape Bristol-fashion, the cruise promised to be prosperous; but such an unheard-of solecism as to weigh without one more drinking bout in honour of the expedition, was not to be thought of; therefore Bottle-Jack opined it was indispensable they should immediately go ashore.
The others agreed without scruple. One difficulty alone presented itself: the quay stood a good quarter of a mile off, and even in harbour it was rather a stormy night for a swim. As Slap-Jack observed, “it couldn’t be done comfortable without a plank of some kind; but most like, if they waited till dark, they might make free with the skipper’s dingy hanging over the starn!”
“’Tis but totting up another figure or two on the score with old Shiney-face,” argued Smoke-Jack, who, considering his profession, was of a frugal turn of mind, and who little knew how completely the purchase-money of his own body and bones had wiped off the chalk behind the door. “Such a voyage as we’re a-goin’ to make will square longer accounts than ours, though I am uncommon dry, considerin’. Just one more spree on the quiet, you know, my sons, and back to duty again as steady as a sou’-wester. There’s no fear they’ll weigh without us, a-course?”
“A-course not,” grunted old Bottle-Jack, who could scarce have been half sober yet, to hazard such a suggestion. “The skipper is quite the gentleman, no doubt, and most like when he misses us he’ll send the ship’s pinnace ashore with his compliments.”
“Pinnace be blowed!” retorted Slap-Jack; “anyway you may be sure he won’t sail without the dingy;” and in this more reasonable conclusion the others could not but acquiesce.