"'You did nobly there, my dear boy,' said Sir Charles; 'managed it well! 'Gad, it was a crisis, though, Mr Westwood!' 'I'm afraid, however, sir,' said I, eyeing the crackling bushes, smoking and whitening to a dead smoulder in the sunlight, then flashing farther down as the hill-breeze rustled off, 'I'm afraid we shall have the woods burning about our ears!'
"Down we hurried accordingly, and hailed the cutter, where, scarce had we leisure to pass a few quick words and tumble in, before I heard a shout beyond the other turn of the creek, through the end of the lagoon; then something like the cheep of ropes through blocks, with the bustle of men's feet on a deck, and next minute a perfect hubbub of cries, whether Dutch, Portuguese, English, or all together, I couldn't say—only it wasn't likely the last would kick up such a bother for nothing. Four or five Kroomen came leaping round and along the float of logs at the far end, their large straw hats shining in the light over their jet faces, as they peered across into the lagoon. The minute after they vanished we saw the white upper spars of a schooner slide above the farthest of the wood, and her bowsprit shoved past the turn just enough to show her sharp lead-coloured bow, with the mouth of a gun out of a port, and a fellow blowing the red end of his match behind it. All at once the chorus of shouts and cries ceased, and a single voice sang out along the water, clear, stern, and startling, in bad Portuguese, 'Queren sieté? who are you?' Still we gave no answer, quietly shoving off as fast as we could, the flicker of the fire in the brake behind the trees beginning to show itself through the black shade of the lagoon. 'Queren sieté?' sang out the voice, louder than before, in a threatening way, and the logs were knocking and plashing before the schooner as the Kroomen hauled at them to make an opening. 'Amigos! Amigos!' hailed we in turn; 'Ingleses, gentlemen!' shouted the cadet who knew Portuguese, calling to them not to fire, for heaven's sake, else they would do us some harm. With this, the hubbub was worse than before; they plainly had some design on us, from the confusion that got up; but by that time we were pulling hard into the narrow of the river, and took the fair current of it as soon as the boat was past the falling stream we had seen before, till we were round into the next reach.
"In fact, the rate we all bent our backs at this time was pretty different from coming up: the cadets seemed hardly to feel the heat, fierce and close though it was, at thought of those that might be in our wake, and nobody spoke a word at ease till at last, after an hour's hard work, taking it in turns, we came full in sight of the Indiaman at her anchor on the broad current. The ladies blessed the very ropes hanging from her bowsprit, and we got safe aboard, where we found the two other boats had come back long before; and every one of us turned in directly after sundown, as tired as dogs.
"Well, I didn't suppose I had slept an hour, dreaming terribly wild sort of dreams about Violet Hyde and elephants, then that I'd saved her myself, and was stooping to kiss her rosy lips, when a sudden noise on deck startled me. I shoved myself into my clothes, and rushed on the quarter-deck. She had gone aground at her stern in swinging in the water the Portuguese rascal gave her, canted a little over to starboard, away from the shore; and till morning flood nothing could be done to haul her off. The fog was rolling down with the land-breeze, and the jabber in the woods again thickened the confusion, when all at once a dim flash off the shore glimmered in the white fog, and a round-shot whistled just astern, pretty well aimed for her bilge, which would have cost us some work if it had hit. After that, however, there was no more of it, the fellow probably having spent either all his powder or his balls. As for his fort, I heard the chief officer swearing he would knock it about his ears next day—a thing that couldn't have done him much harm, certainly, unless mud were dear.
"No sooner had the men gone below, leaving the ordinary anchor-watch, than Mr Finch, to my great surprise, walked up to me, and gave me a strange suspicious look, hinting that he began to have a good guess of what I really was, but if anything new of the kind turned up, said he, he should know better what to say to me. 'Mr Finch,' said I, starting, 'this won't do, sir—you'll either speak your mind before cabin and cuddy, or to-morrow morning, by Jove! you'll go quietly ashore with me, sir—as I think, now you remind me of it, we settled to do, already!' The mate's face whitened, and he eyed me with a glare of malice, as I turned on my heel and began to walk the quarter-deck till he went below.
"However, the thought of the thing stuck to me, and I kept walking in the dark to get rid of it: the four or five men of the anchor-watch shuffling lazily about, and all thick save ahead up the river, where the land-breeze blew pretty strong, bringing now and then a faint gleam out of the mist. I was leaning against the fore-chains, listening to the ebb-time, and thinking, when I saw one of the men creeping in from the bowsprit, which you just saw, where it ran up thick into the dusk, with scarce a glimpse of the jib-boom and flying-jib-boom beyond.
"The sailor came up, touching his hat to me, and said he thought he saw something queer off the boom-end. 'Well,' said I gruffly, 'go and tell your mate, then.' I didn't know the fellow's voice, though it had a particular twang in it, and he wasn't in Jacobs' watch, I knew. 'Why, your honour,' he persisted, 'I knows pretty well what you air—asking your pardon, sir—but I think you'd make more out of it nor any of the mates! It's some'at rather skeary, sir,' added he. Accordingly I took hold of the man-ropes and swung myself up the bowsprit, and had my feet on the foot-rope below the jib-boom, when I heard his breath, following behind me. 'Never you trouble yourself, my man,' said I; 'one at a time!' and back he went in board again—for something curious in his way struck me; but I wanted to see what he meant. I had just got near the flying-jib, half-stowed in as it was on the boom, and I fancied, with a creep of my blood in me, I made out a man's head over the sail; but next moment a hand like a vice caught me by the throat, and some one growled out, 'Now ye infernal man-o'-war hound, I have ye—and down you goes for it!'
"The instant I felt it, my coolness came back; as for grappling, I couldn't, and the ebb current ran below to her bows at a rate fit to carry one out to sea in half-an-hour. I saw the whole plot in a twinkling, and never moved; instead of that I gave a sort of laugh, and followed the husky twang of the other man to a tee. 'He won't come, Harry, my lad!' said I, and my ugly friend let go before he had time to think twice. 'He be blowed!' said Harry, scornfully; 'an' why won't he, mate?' He had scarce the words out of his mouth, though, ere I took him a twist that doubled him over the spar, and down he slipped, hanging by a clutch of the sail. 'I suppose, my fine fellow,' said I, 'you forgot Fernando Po, and those nigger adventures of yours—eh?' and I went in without more ado.
"I hadn't been ten minutes on deck, however, when I heard both of them swearing something or other to the first mate. A little after Finch came forward to me, with a ship's lantern, and three or four of the men behind. 'Mr Collins, or whatever's your name, sir,' said he aloud, 'I believe you've been seen just now at the bowsprit-end, making signals or something to the shore! You're in arrest at once, sir, and no more about it!' 'What the deuce!' said I, my blood up, and pulling out a pair of pocket-pistols I had had in the boat, 'let me see the man to——' At the moment a blow of a handspike from near the mast laid me senseless on the deck, and I knew nothing more.—But I see 'tis too far gone in the night to carry out the yarn, ladies!"