"During all this time I had felt so sure of my ground as scarcely to trouble myself about the Bengal judge and his treasure of a daughter; only in the midst of the high spirits brought up by the breeze, I hugged myself now and then at the thought of their turning out by degrees as things got settled. Nobody would suspect the raw chap I looked, with smooth hair and a high collar, of any particular cue: I must say there was a little vanity at the bottom of it, but I kept thinking more and more how snug and quietly I'd enjoy all that went on, sailing on one tack with the passengers and the old nabob himself, and slipping off upon the other when I could come near the charming young Lota. The notion looks more like what some scamp of a reefer, cruising ashore, would have hit upon, than suits my taste nowadays; but the cockpit had put a spice of the imp in me, which I never got clear of till this very voyage, as you'll see, if we get through the log of it.
"The first time I went down into the cuddy was that evening to tea, where all was at sixes and sevens like the decks; the lamps ill-trimmed, stewards out of the way, and a few lads trying to bear up against their stomachs by the help of brandy and biscuits. The main figure was a jolly-looking East Indian, an indigo-planter, as he turned out, with a bald forehead, a hook nose, and his gills covered with white whiskers that gave him all the cut of a cockatoo. He had his brown servant running about on every hand, and being an old stager, did his best to cheer up the rest; but nothing I saw showed the least sign of the party I looked after. I was sure I ought to have made out something of them by this time, considering the stir such a grandee as Sir Charles Hyde would cause aboard; in fact, there didn't seem to be many passengers in her, and I began to curse the lying scoundrel of a kitmagar for working 'Tom Cox's traverse' on me, and myself for being a greater ass than I'd fancied. Indeed, I heard the planter mention by chance that Sir Charles Hyde, the district judge, had come home last voyage from India in this very Seringapatam, which, no doubt, I thought, put the Mahommedan rascal up to his trick.
"I was making up my mind to an Indian trip, and the pure pleasure of Daniel Catoson Snout, Esquire's, company for two blessed months, when all of a sudden I felt the ship bring her wind a-quarter, with a furious plunge of the Channel water along her bends, that made every landman's bowels yearn as if he felt it gurgle through him. One young fellow, more drunk than sick, gave a wild bolt right over the cuddy table, striking out with both arms and legs as if afloat, so as to sweep half of the glasses down on the floor. The planter, who was three cloths in the wind himself, looked down upon him with a comical air of pity as soon as he had got cushioned upon the wreck. 'My dear fellow,' said he, 'what do you feel—eh?' 'Feel, you—old blackguard!' stammered the griffin, 'I feel everything! Goes through—through my vitals as if—I was a con—founded whale! C—can't stand it!' 'You've drunk yourself aground, my boy!' sung out the indigo-man; 'stuck fast on the coral—eh? Never mind, we'll float you off, only don't flounder that way with your tail!—by George, you scamp, you've ruined my toe—oh dear!' I left the planter hopping round on one pin, and holding the gouty one in his hand, betwixt laughing and crying; on deck I found the floating Nab Light bearing broad on our lee-bow, with Cumberland Fort glimmering to windward, and the half-moon setting over the Isle of Wight, while we stood up for Portsmouth Harbour. The old captain, and most of the officers, were on the poop for the first time, though as stiff and uncomfortable from the sort of land-sickness and lumber-qualms that sailors feel till things are in their places, as the landsmen did until things were out of them. The skipper walked the weather side by himself and said nothing; the smart chief officer sent two men, one after another, from the wheel for 'cows' that didn't know where their tails were; and as for the middies, they seemed to know when to keep out of the way. In a little, the spars of the men-of-war at Spithead were to be seen as we rose on a sea; before the end of the first watch, we were running outside the Spit Buoy, which was nodding and plashing with the tide in the last slant of moonshine, till at last we rounded to, and down went the anchor in five fathoms, off the Motherbank. What the Indiaman wanted at Portsmouth I didn't know; but, meantime, I had given up all hopes of the nabob being in her, and the only question with me was, whether I should take the opportunity of giving all hands the slip here, even though I left my Yankee friend disconsolate, and a clear gainer by dollars beyond count.
"Early next morning there were plenty of wherries looking out for fares; so, as the Indiaman was not to sail before the night-ebb, when the breeze would probably spring up fair again, I hailed one of them to go ashore at the point, for a quiet stroll over Southsea Common, where I meant to overhaul the whole bearings of the case, and think if it weren't better to go home, and wait the Admiralty's pleasure for a ship. I hadn't even seen anything of Jacobs, and the whole hotel-keeping ways of the Indiaman began to disgust me, or else I should have at once decided to take the chance of seeing Lota Hyde somehow or other in India; but, again, one could scarcely endure the notion of droning on in a frigate without so much as a Brest lugger to let drive at. It was about six o'clock; the morning-gun from the guard-ship off the dock-yard came booming down through the harbour, the blue offing shone like silver, and the green tideway sparkled on every surge, up to where they were flashing and poppling on the copper of the frigates at Spithead. I noticed them crossing yards and squaring; the farthest out hove up anchor, loosed fore-topsail, cast her head to starboard, and fired a gun as she stood slowly out to sea under all sail, with a light air freshening abeam. The noble look of her almost reconciled me of itself to the service, were it for the mere sake of having a share in driving such a craft between wind and water. Just then, however, an incident turned up in spite of me, which I certainly didn't expect, and which had more, even than I reckoned at the time, to do with my other adventure; seeing that it made me, both then and afterwards, do the direct opposite of what I meant to do, and both times put a new spoke in my wheel, as we say at sea here.
"I had observed a seventy-four, the Stratton, lying opposite the Spit Buoy, on board of which, as the waterman told me, a court-martial had been held the day before, where they broke a first lieutenant for insulting his captain. Both belonged to one of the frigates: the captain I had seen, and heard of as the worst tyrant in the navy; his ship was called a 'perfect hell afloat'; that same week one of the boys had tried to drown himself alongside, and a corporal of marines, after coming ashore and drinking a glass with his sweetheart, had coolly walked down to the point, jumped in between two boats and the jetty, and kept himself under water till he was dead. The lieutenant had been dismissed the service, and as I recognised the name, I wondered whether it could actually be my schoolfellow, Tom Westwood, as gallant a fellow and as merry as ever broke biscuit. Two sail-boats, one from around the Stratton's quarter, and the other from over by Gosport, steering on the same tack for Southsea, turned my attention as I sauntered down to the beach. The bow of the nearest wherry grounded on the stones as I began to walk quicker towards the town-gates, chiefly because I was pretty ready for an early breakfast at the old Blue Posts, and also because I had a slight notion of what these gentlemen wanted on Southsea Beach at odd hours. Out they jumped, however—one man in naval undress, another a captain in full fig, the third a surgeon—coming right athwart my course to bring me to. The first I almost at once remembered for the notorious captain of the Orestes, or N'Oreste, as the midshipmen called her, from her French build and her character altogether. 'Hallo, you sir!' said the other captain, decidedly, 'you must stand still.' 'Indeed,' said I; 'and why so, if you please?' 'Since you are here, we don't intend allowing you to pass for some few minutes.' 'And what if I should do as I choose, sir?' I asked. 'If you stir two steps, sir, I shall shoot you,' replied the captain, who was one of the bullying school. 'Oh, very well,' I said, rather confounded by his impertinence, 'then I shall stay'; and I accordingly stood stock-still, with my arms folded, until the other boat landed a party of two. They were in plain clothes; nor did I give them any particular heed till the seconds had stationed their men, when the captain of the Orestes had his back to me, and his antagonist stood directly facing. As his pale resolved features came out before me with the morning sun on them, his lips together, and his nostrils large, I recognised my old friend Westwood. The captain had broke him the day before, and now had accepted his challenge, being a known dead shot, while the lieutenant had never fired a bullet in cold blood; there was, no doubt, a settled purpose in the tyrant to crush the first man that had dared to thwart his will. Westwood's second came forward and mentioned to the other that his friend was still willing to withdraw the words spoken in first heat, and would accordingly fire in the air. 'Coward!' shouted the captain of the Orestes immediately, 'I shall shoot you through the heart!' 'Sir,' said I to his second, 'I will not look on; and if that gentleman is shot, I will be witness against you both as murderers.' I dropped down behind a stone out of the line of fire, and to keep my eyes off the devilish piece of work, though my blood boiled to knock the fellow down that I was speaking to. Another minute, and the suspense was too great for me to help looking up. Just at that moment I saw how set Westwood's face was; he was watching his enemy with an eye that showed to me what the other's must be—seeking for his life. The seconds gave the word to each other in the middle, and dropped two white handkerchiefs at once with their hands together; I caught the flash of Westwood's pistol, when, to my astonishment, I saw the captain of the Orestes next moment jerk up his arm betwixt me and the sky, fire in the air, and slowly fall back—he was dead!—shot through the heart. One glance at his face gave you a notion of the devilish meaning he had had; but what was my surprise when his second walked up to Westwood, and said to him, 'Sir, you are the murderer of Captain Duncombe—my friend fired in the air as you proposed.' 'You are mistaken, sir,' answered Westwood, coldly; 'Captain Duncombe sought my life, and I have used the privilege of self-defence.' 'The surgeon is of my opinion,' said the other; 'and I am sorry to say that we cannot allow you to depart.' 'I shall give myself up to the authorities at once,' said Westwood. 'We have only your word for that, which I must be permitted, in such a case, to doubt,' replied the captain, whose evident wish it was to detain Westwood by force or threats while he sent off his surgeon. The worst of it was, as I now found, that since the court-martial and the challenge, an Admiralty order had arrived, in consideration of several gallant acts during the war, as well as private representation, restoring him to the service; so that he had, in fact, called out and shot his superior officer. As for the charge now brought forward, it was too absurd for any to believe it, unless from rage or prejudice; the case was bad enough, at any rate, without it.
"In the meantime I had exchanged a word or two with Westwood's friend; after which, lifting a second pistol which lay on the sand, I went up to the captain. 'Sir,' said I, 'you used the freedom, a little ago, of forcing me into your concerns, and I have seen the end of it. I have now got to tell you, having watched your conduct, that either you must submit to be made fast here for a bit, else, by the God that made me, I'll shoot you through the head.' The captain looked at me, his surgeon sidled up to him; and being a man near my own size, he suddenly tried to wrench the pistol out of my hands. However, I had him the next moment under my knee, while Westwood's second secured the little surgeon, and took a few round sea-turns about his wrists and ankles with a neckerchief. My companion then gave me a hand to do the same with his superior officer—the medico all the time singing out like a bull, and the captain threatening—while the dead body lay stark and stiff behind us, the eyes wide, the head down, and the breast up, the hand clenching a pistol, just as he had fallen. Westwood stood quite unconscious of everything we did, only he seemed to be watching the knees drawn up as they stiffened, and the sand-flies gathering about the mouth. 'Shall we clap a stopper between their teeth?' said the second to me—he had been at sea, but who he was I never knew—'the surgeon will be heard on the walls, he bellows so!' 'Never mind,' said I, 'we'll just drop them beyond tide-mark—the lee of the stones yonder.' In fact, from the noise the tide was making, I question if the shots could have been heard even by the watermen, who had prudently sheered out of sight round a point. I couldn't help looking, when we had done this, from the captain's body to his own frigate, as she was sluing round head on to us, at single anchor, to the turn of tide, with her buoy dancing on the brisk blue sweep of water, and her figure-head shining in the sunlight. As soon as we had covered over the corpse with tangle, Westwood started as if we had taken something away from him, or freed him of a spell. 'Westwood!' said I, laying my hand on his shoulder, 'you must come along with me.' He said nothing, but followed us quietly round to the wherries, where I told the watermen that the other party had gone a different way to keep clear, and we wanted them to pull for Gosport. At Gosport we had Westwood rigged out in black clothes, his hair cropped, and whiskers shaved off—as I thought it the fittest thing for his case, and what he could best carry out, to go aboard of the Indiaman with me as if he were a missionary. Poor fellow! he didn't well know what he was. So, having waited till dusk, to let the watermen lose our track, and his friend having posted off for Dover, he and I both got safe over to the Seringapatam, where I had him stowed in the first convenient state-room I could find. I had actually forgot, through the excitement, all about having missed my first chase; from one hour to another I kept watching the tide-marks ashore, and the dog-vane on the ship's quarter, all impatience to hear the word given for 'all hands up anchor,' and hoping our worthy friends on Southsea Beach were still lying within hearing of the Channel flood. At last the order did come; round went the capstan merrily enough, till she had hove short and up with fore-topsail set; the anchor was catted, and off went the lumbering old craft through the Solent about midnight, before a fine rattling breeze, in company with six or seven others, all running for the Needles. They were loosing the Indiaman's royals when I heard a gun from the guard-ship in harbour; and a little after up went a rocket, signalling to some frigate or other at Spithead; away they kept at it, with lights from the telegraph to her mast-head, for several minutes. 'All's up!' thought I, 'and both Westwood and myself are in for it!'
"Next morning at daybreak, accordingly, no sooner did the dawn serve to show us Portland Light going out on the weather quarter, with a whole fleet of Channel craft and Mediterranean brigs about us, we surging through it as fast as the Indiaman could go—than there was a fine forty-four standing off and on right in our course, in fact the very identical Orestes herself! She picked us out in a moment—bore up, stood across our weather-bow, and hailed. 'What ship's that?' said the first luff in her mizzen rigging.
"'The Seringapatam, Honourable Company's ship, Captain Williamson!' sung out our first officer, with his cap off. 'Heave to, till I send a boat aboard of you,' hailed the naval man, and there we bobbed to each other with mainyards backed. In a few minutes a master's mate with gig's crew was under our lee-quarter, and the mate came on deck. 'Sir,' said he, 'the Port Admiral will thank you to deliver these despatches for Sir Charles Hyde, who I believe is aboard.' 'Certainly, sir,' said the first officer, 'they shall be given to him in an hour's time.'
"'Good morning, and a fine voyage,' said the master's mate politely; and I took the occasion of asking if Captain Duncombe were on board the Orestes. 'No, sir,' answered the midshipman, 'he happens to be ashore at present.' I have seldom felt so relieved as when I saw the frigate haul round her main-yard, and go sweeping off to leeward, while we resumed our course. By noon we had sunk the land about Start Point, with a breeze which it was no use wasting at that season to take 'departures'; and as the afternoon set in hazy, we were soon out of sight of old England for good. For my part, I was bound eastward at last with a witness, and, like a young bear again, 'all my troubles before me.'
"There is two bells though," interrupted the narrator, starting. "Let us see what sort of night it is before the ladies retire."