"'Twas curious, but when I was 'two or three sheets in the wind,' far from growing stupid, I used always to get a sort of cunning that would have made me try and cheat a purser; so away I lowered myself till the rope was taut, when I slipped easy enough round the counter, below the window. Every time she rolled, out I swung, and in again, till I steadied with my feet, slacking off the other line from one hand. Then I began to give voice like old Boreas himself, with a sort of a notion, at each shove I got, how I was rocking the Indiaman like a big cradle, as Jacobs did his baby. All at once I felt the rope was giving off the belaying-pin, till I came down with a jolt under the window below; only singing the louder, as it was half open, and I could just look in. With every wash of the waves the water, a couple of fathoms under my feet, blazed up like fire, and the wake ran boiling out from the black stern by the rudder, like the iron out of a furnace; now and then there came a sulky flare of dumb lightning to leeward, and showed the black swell out of the dark for miles.
"I fancied I didn't care for the water, but I began to think 'twas rather uncomfortable the notion of sousing into such an infernally flame-looking stream; I was actually in a fright at being boiled, and not able to swim. So I dropped chorus to haul myself up, when of a sudden, by the lamp inside the state-room, I saw Winterton and Ford come reeling in, one after the other, as drunk as lords. Winterton swayed about quietly on his legs for a minute, and then looked gravely at Ford, as if he'd got a dreadful secret to make known.
"'Ford!' said he. 'Ay,' said Ford, feeling to haul off his trousers—'ay—avast you—blub-lub-lubber!' 'I say, Ford!' said the cadet again, in a melancholy way, fit to melt a marling-spike, and then fell to cry—Ford all the time pulling off his trousers, with a cigar in his mouth, till he got on a chest, and contrived to flounder into his cot with his coat on. After that he stretched over to put the lamp out, carefully enough, but he let fall his cigar, and one leg of his nankeen trousers hung out of the cot, just scraping the deck every time he swung. I watched, accordingly, holding on by the sill, till I saw a spark catch in the stuff, and there it was, swinging slowly away in the dark, with a fiery ring creeping round the leg of the trousers, ready to blow into a flame as soon as it had a clear swing. No doubt the fool would come down safe enough himself with his cot; but I knew Winterton kept powder in the cabin sufficient to blow up the deck above, where that sweet girl was sleeping at the moment. 'Confound it,' I thought, quite cooled by the sight, 'the sooner I get on deck the better.'
"However, you may fancy my thoughts when I heard men at the taffrail, hauling on the spanker-boom guys; so I held on till they'd go forward again; suddenly the mate's voice sung out to know 'what lubber had belayed the slack of a topsail clueline here?' Down I went with the word, as the rope was thrown off, with just time to save myself by a clutch of the port-sill at arm's-length—where, heaven knew, I couldn't keep long. The mate looked over and caught sight of my face, by a flicker of the summer lightning, as I was slipping down: I gave him one curse as loud as I could hail, and let go the moulding. 'Man overboard,' shouted he, and the men after him; however, I wasn't altogether overboard yet, for I felt the other part of the rope bring me up with a jerk and a swing right under the quarter-boat, where I clung like a cat.
"How to get on deck again without being seen was the question, and anxious enough I was at thought of the burning train inside, when out jumped someone over my head; I heard a splash in the water, and saw a fellow's face go sinking into the bright wake astern, while the boat itself was coming down over me from the davits. I still had the guide-line from the life-buoy round my wrist, and one moment's thought was enough to make me give it a furious tug, when away I sprang clear into the eddies. The first thing I saw at coming up was the ship's lighted stern-windows driving to leeward, then the life-buoy flaring and dipping on a swell, and a bare head, with two hands, sinking a few feet off. I made for him at once, and held him up by the hair as I struck out for the buoy. A couple of minutes after, the men in the boat had hold of us and it; the ship came sheering round to the wind, and we were very shortly on board again.
"'Confound it, Simm, what took you overboard, man?' asked the mid in the boat at his dripping messmate, the fat reefer. 'Oh, bother!' said he,'if you must know—why, I mistook the quarter-boats; I thought 'twas the other I was in when you kicked up that shindy. Now I remember, though, there was too much rain in it for comfort.' 'Well, youngster,' said Tom, the man-o'-war's-man, 'this here gentleman saved your life, anyhow!' 'Why, mate,' whispered Bill, ''tis the wery same greenhorn we puckalowed so to-day. Didn't he jump sharp over, too?' 'Pull! for your lives, my lads!' said I, looking up at Ford's window; and the moment we got on deck, below I ran into the state-room, and cut Ford down by the heels, with the tinder hanging from him, and one leg of his trousers half gone. As for the poor reefer, a pretty blowing up he got; the men swore I had jumped overboard after him, and the mate would have it that, instead of sleeping, he wanted to get into the judge's cabins; especially when next day Sir Charles was in a rage at his daughter being disturbed by some sailor or other singing outside.
CHAPTER VIII
"You must surely be tired by this time, ma'am, of this long-winded yarn of mine?" said the commander of the Gloucester to the elder of his fair listeners, next evening they met with the evident expectation of hearing further; "but after all, this voyage must be dull work for you at present, so I daresay you are amused with anything by way of a change.
"Well, one morning, when Westwood and I went on deck, it was a stark staring calm; as dead as a mill-pond, save for the long winding heave that seemed to come miles up out of the stale blue water, and get tired with the journey—from the horizon to us in one lazy coil, and on every side, just serving to jerk the wheel a spoke back and forward, with nobody at it. The very bits of pumpkin-paring and fat which the cook had thrown overboard the night before lay still alongside, with an oily track oozing round about them from the 'slush' [14] —the sails hanging from the yards, up and down, like clothes on a screen—and when you looked over the side away from the sun, you saw your own face, like a fellow's that had been long drowned, peering back at you, as it were, round the keel—in fact, there you scarce knew where the water was.