"Here the judge came over from the binnacle, giving me a nod, as much as to say he recollected me. 'I am afraid, sir,' said I, 'if you don't make haste, you'll get wet.' 'How!' said Sir Charles, ''tis an exceedingly pleasant night, I think, after such a very hot day. They don't know how to cool rooms here—this perpetual wood retains heat till midnight, sir! That detestable pitch precludes walking—the sea absolutely glares like tin. Why do you suppose so now—eh, young gentleman?' said he again, turning back, all of a sudden, with his daughter on his arm.
"'Why—why—why, Sir Charles,' said I, hesitating betwixt sham innocence and scarce knowing what reason to give; 'why, I just think—that is to say, it's my feeling, you see.' 'Ah, ah, I do see,' replied the judge, good-humouredly; 'but you shouldn't ape the sailor, my good fellow, as I fancy you do a little. I don't particularly admire the class, but they always have grounds for what they say in their profession, frequently even acute. At your aunt's, Lady Somers's now, Violet, who was naturally so surrounded by naval officers, what I had to object to was, not their want of intelligence, but their forwardness. Eh—eh! who—what is that?' exclaimed he suddenly, looking straight up into the dark, as five or six large drops fell on his face out of it. All at once you heard a long sigh, as it were, in the canvas aloft, a clap like two or three carronades fired off, as all the sails together went into the masts—then a hum in the air far and near—and whish! rush! came the rain in sheets and bucketfuls off the edge of a cloud over our very heads, plashing and washing about the deck with coils of rope; ship rolling without a breath of wind in her sails; sails flapping out and in; the rain pouring down ten times faster than the scupper-holes would let it out, and smoking grey in the dark hollow of the swells, that sank under the force of it.
"The first officer came on deck, roaring in the hubbub to clue up and furl the royals before the wind came again. It got pitch-dark, you couldn't see your hand before you, and we had all lost mark of each other, as the men came shoving in between us. However, I knew whereabouts Miss Hyde was, so I felt along the larboard rigging till I found a back-stay clasped in her hands, and the soaked sleeve of her muslin dress, while she leant back on a carronade, to keep from being jerked down in the water that washed up over her feet with every roll, full of ropes and a capstan bar or two. Without saying a word, I took up Lota in my arms, and carried her aft in spite of the roll and confusion, steering for the glimmer of the binnacle, till I got her inside one of their own cabins, where there was a lamp swinging about, and laid her on a sofa. I felt somehow or other, as I went, that the sweet creature hadn't fainted, though all the while as still as death; accordingly I made off again at once to find the judge, who, no doubt, was calling for his daughter, with a poor chance of being heard.
"In a minute or two more the rain was over; it was light enough to make out the horizon, as the belt of foam came broadening out of it; the ship gave two or three wild bounds, the wheel jolting and creaking; up swelled the black waves again over one side, the topsails flapped full as the squall rushed roaring into them, and away she rose; then tore into it like a scared horse, shaking her head and throwing the snow-white foam into her fore-chains. 'Twas as much as three men could do to grind down her wheel, leaning and grinning to it; you saw just the Indiaman herself, scarce so far forward as the booms, and the broad swell mounting with her out of the dark, as she slowly squared yards before it, taking in to'gallant-sails while she did so with her topsail-yards lowered on the caps. However, the look of it was worse than its force, else the swell wouldn't have risen so fast, as every sailor knew; and by two bells of the mid-watch she was bowling under all, as easy as before, the mate of the watch setting a stunsail.
"When I went down, shaking myself like a Newfoundland, Westwood was swinging in his cot with a book turned to the lamp, reading Don Quixote in Spanish. 'Bless me, Ned!' said he, 'you seem to like it! paying fair and weathering it too!' 'Only a little adventure, Westwood!' said I, laughing. 'Why, here have I been enjoying better adventures than we seem likely to have,' said he, 'without stirring a hand, except for the wild swings you gave me from deck. Here's Don Quixote——' 'Don Quixote be hanged!' said I: 'I'd rather wear ship in a gale, myself, than all the humbug that never happened—out of an old play-book. What's the use of thinking you see service, when you don't? After all, you couldn't expect much till we've crossed the Line—nothing like the tropics, or the Cape, for thickening a plot, Tom. Then there's the Mozambique, you know!' 'Well, we'll see,' said Westwood, lazily, and half asleep.
"The whole next day would have been weary enough in itself, as not a single glimpse of the fair Lota could I catch; and the weather, between the little puffs of air and squalls we had, was fit to have melted poor Ford to the bone, but for the rain. However, that day was sufficient, by fits and starts, to bring us up to the Line; and before crossing it, which we did by six o'clock in one of the black squalls, half of the passengers had been pretty well ducked by Neptune and his gang besides.
"Rare fun we had of it for three or four hours on end; the cadets and writers showing fight in a body, the Yankee being regularly keelhauled, tarred, and feathered, though I believe he had crossed the Line twice by land; while the Scotch surgeon was found out, in spite his caution, never to have been lower than the West Indies—so he got double ration. A word to Jacobs took Westwood scot-free; but, for my own part, wishing of course to blind the officers, I let the men stick the tar-brush in my mouth the first word I spoke, and was shaved like the mischief, not to speak of plumping afterwards behind the studding-sail curtain into three feet water, where I absolutely saved Ford from drowning, he being as sick as a dog.
"Late at night the breeze held and freshened, and, being Saturday night, the gentlemen in the cuddy kept it uproariously after their troubles; drinking and singing songs—Tom Little's and your sentimental affairs; till, being a bit flushed myself, I was on the point of giving them one of Dibdin's, when I thought better of it, and went on deck instead. The mate was there, however, and his red-whiskered Scotch sub with the twisted snout, leaning on the capstan with their noses together. The night was dark, and the ship made a good noise through the water; so 'Hang it!' thought I, 'somehow or other I'll have out a stave of "Black-eyed Susan" at the top of my pipe, though overboard I go for it.
"There was an old square topsail-yard slung alongside to larboard, as far as the quarter-boat, and I went up to the poop to get over and sit on it; especially when I found Ford's friend the fat midshipman was in the boat itself, 'caulking' [12] his watch out, as he did every night in a fresh place.
"I was no sooner there again, than I saw a light in the aftermost gallery window, and took it in my head if I sung there, why, in place of being afraid there was someone under her casement, that and the wind and water together would put her to sleep, if she was the worse of last night—in fact, I may say I was a little 'slewed' [13] at the time. How to get there, though, was the matter, it being rather a nice practice to sling over an Indiaman's quarter-gallery, bulging out from her steep counter; accordingly, first I took the end of coil round the mizzen-shrouds, and made a bowline-knot to creep down the stern-mouldings with, and then swing free by help of a guide-line to boot. Just before letting go of the taffrail, another fancy struck me, to hitch the guide-line to the trigger of the life-buoy that hung ready for use; not that I'd the notion of saving myself if I went overboard, but just because of the good joke of a fellow slipping his own life-buoy, and then cruising away, with a light at his mast-head, back to the Line.