"At any rate, I saw it was cunningly enough gone about; this same burnt barque of the Yankee's, I perceived in a moment, was part of the plot; though as for meddling in it till I saw more, 'twas likely to spoil the whole; let alone making an ass of oneself in case of mistake. I was eyeing the shipwrecked mate, indeed, when one of the lieutenants told me politely the Admiral wanted to see me in the cabin below.
"Not being much accustomed to admirals' society, as a little white-haired fellow-reefer of mine once said at a tea-party ashore, I came in at the door with rather an awkward bow, no doubt; for Sir Dudley, who was sitting on the sofa with his cocked hat and sword beside him, talking to Captain Wallis, turned his head at the captain's word, as if he were trying to keep in a smile. A tall, fine-looking man he was, and few seamen equal to him for handling a large fleet, as I knew, though his manners were finished enough to have made him easy in a king's court. As for the captain of the Hebe, he was leaning out of an open stern-window, seemingly a young man; but who he might be I didn't know at the moment. The Admiral had only a question or two to put, before he looked back to Captain Wallis again, remarking it was clear he had brought away the wrong man. 'I didn't think you were so dull in the Podargus,' said he, smiling, 'as to let an Indiaman play off such a trick on you—eh, Captain Wallis!'
"Captain Wallis glanced round the cabin, and then sideways down at Sir Dudley's cocked hat, in a funny enough way, as much as to say he took all the blame on himself; and it struck me more than ever what a kind heart the man had in him—if you only set aside his hatred to Bonaparte, which in fact was nothing else but a twisted sort of proof of the same thing. 'Pooh, pooh, Wallis,' continued Sir Dudley, 'we can't do anything in the matter; though, if the service were better than it really is at present, I should certainly incline to question a smart young fellow like this, that has held His Majesty's commission, for idling in an Indiaman after the lady passengers! I am afraid, sir,' said he to me, 'you've lost your passage, though—unless the captain of the Hebe will give you his second berth here, to make amends. You need not be afraid, Lord Frederick!' added he, looking toward the captain of the frigate, and raising his voice; 'you do not know him, after all, I suppose!' The captain drew in his head, saying he had been doubtful about one of the pivots of the rudder, then turned full round and looked uneasily at me, on which his face brightened immediately, and he said, 'No, Sir Dudley, I do not!' I was still in ignorance for a moment or so, myself, who this titled young post-captain might be, though I had certainly seen him before; till all at once I recollected him, with a start as pleasant to me as his seemed to him at not knowing me. Both Westwood and I had been midshipmen together for a while in the Orion, fifty-gun ship, where he was second lieutenant, several years before. As for me, I was too fond of a frigate to stay longer in her than I could help; but I remembered my being a pest to the second lieutenant, and Tom's being a favourite of his, so that he stayed behind me, and got master's-mate as soon as he was 'passed.'
"The Honourable Frederick Bury he was then, and the handsomest young fellow in the squadron, as well as the best-natured aboard; I don't believe he knew how to splice in a dead-eye, and any of the masters'-mates could take charge of the ship better in a rough night, I daresay; but for a gallant affair in the way of hard knocks, with management to boot, there wasn't his match. He never was known to fail when he took a thing in hand; lost fewer men, too, than anyone else did; and whenever there turned up anything ticklish for the boats, it was always 'Mr Bury will lead.' 'The Honourable Bury,' we used to call him, and 'Fighting Free-the-deck.' Westwood was one of his school, whereas I had learnt from Jacobs in a merchantman's forecastle; and many a time did we play off such tricks on the second lieutenant as coming gravely aft to him during the watch, three or four of us together, me carrying a bit of rope where a 'Turk's-head' or a 'mouse' was to be worked, while I asked him innocently to show us the way. Or else it was some dispute we contrived beforehand, as to the best plan of sending up new topmasts at sea, or running out of a 'round' gale in the Indian Ocean, on which the men forward would be all ready to break out laughing; and the second lieutenant, after thinking a moment, would quietly pitch upon me to go aloft, and study the point for two hours at the mast-head.
"'What is your name then, young man?' inquired Sir Dudley Aldcombe of me. The instant I told him, Lord Frederick Bury gave me another look, then a smile. 'What?' said he, 'Collins that was in the Orion?' 'Yes, Lord Frederick,' said I, 'the same; I was third in the Iris off the West African coast since then.' 'Why,' said he, 'I recollect you quite well, Mr Collins, although you have grown a foot, I think, sir—but your eye reminds me of sundry pranks you used to play on board! What nickname was it your messmates called you, by-the-by?' 'Something foolish enough, I suppose, my lord,' replied I, biting my lip; 'but I remember clearly having the honour to steer the second cutter in-shore one dark night near Dunkirk, when your lordship carried the Dutch brig and the two French chasse-marées——'
"'Faith,' broke in the captain of the Hebe, 'you've a better memory than I have—I do not recollect any chasse-marées at all that time, Mr Collins!' 'Why,' said I, 'I got a knock on the head from a fellow in a red shirt—that always kept me in mind.' 'Oh,' remarked the Admiral to Captain Wallis, laughing, 'Lord Frederick Bury must have had so many little parties of the kind that his memory can't be expected to be very nice! However, I shall go ashore at present, gentlemen, leaving the Hebe and you to dispose of this runaway lieutenant in some way or other. Only you'd better settle it before Admiral Plampin arrives!' 'Have you seen the—the—Longwood lately, Sir Dudley?' asked the captain of the Podargus carelessly. 'Yes, not many days ago I had an interview,' said the Admiral gravely; 'proud as ever, and evidently resolved not to flinch from his condition. 'Tis wonderful the command that man has over himself, Wallis—he speaks of the whole world and its affairs like one that sees into them, and had them still nearly under his foot! All saving those miserable squabbles with Plantation House, which—but, next time I shall take my leave, and wash my hands of the whole concern, I am glad to think!'
"Lord Frederick was talking to me meanwhile at the other end of the cabin, but I was listening in spite of myself to Sir Dudley Aldcombe, and noticed that Captain Wallis made no answer. 'By-the-way, Wallis,' continued the Admiral, ''tis curious that he seemed anxious more than once to know what you think of him—I believe he would like to see you!' 'To see me!' said the commander of the Podargus, suddenly. 'At last, does he! No, Sir Dudley, he and I never will meet; he ought to have thought of it twelve years sooner! God knows,' he went on, 'the commander of a ten-gun brig is too small a man to see the Emperor Napoleon a prisoner; but in ten years of war, Sir Dudley, what mightn't one have been, instead of being remembered after as only plain John Wallis, whom Bonaparte kept all that time in prison, and who was sent in course of time, to cruise off St Helena?' Here the Admiral said something about a British sailor not keeping malice, and Captain Wallis looked up at him gravely. 'No,' replied he; 'no, Sir Dudley, I shouldn't have chosen the thing; but in the meantime I'm only doing my duty. There's a gloomy turn in my mind by this time, no doubt; but you've no idea, Sir Dudley, how the thought of other people comes into one's head when he's years shut up—so I may stand for many a one Bonaparte will never see more than myself, that'll ring him round surer than those rocks there, though they're dead and in their graves, Sir Dudley!' The Admiral shook his head, observing that Napoleon was no common man, and oughtn't to be judged as such. 'Too many victories in that eye of his, I suspect, Captain Wallis,' said he, 'for either Plantation House or his own conscience to break his spirit!'
"Ay, ay, sir,' answered the captain respectfully, 'excuse me, Sir Dudley, but there it is—so long as he's got his victories to fall back upon, he can't see how, if he'd regarded common men more, with all belonging to them, he wouldn't have been here! Why did Providence shut him up in a dead volcano, with blue water round it, Sir Dudley, if it wasn't to learn somehow or other he was a man after all?' Sir Dudley Aldcombe shrugged his shoulders and looked to Lord Frederick, upon which he rose, and the two captains followed him out of the cabin; in five minutes I heard the side piped for the Admiral's leaving, and soon after the captain of the Hebe came below again.
"'This is a disagreeable affair of your old messmate's, Mr Collins,' said he seriously. 'You are, perhaps, not aware that Captain Duncombe was a relative of my own, and the fact of his property having fallen by will to myself, rendered my position the more peculiarly disagreeable, had I been obliged not only to recognise Lieutenant Westwood here, but afterwards to urge proceedings against him, even if he were let off by court-martial. I cannot tell you how the sight of a stranger, as I thought, relieved me, sir!' 'Indeed, Lord Frederick!' replied I, too much confused in the circumstances to say more. However, his lordship's manner soon set me at my ease, the old good-humoured smile coming over his fine features again, while he went on to offer me the place of his second lieutenant, who was going home very ill by one of the homeward-bound Indiamen; adding, that Sir Dudley would confirm the appointment; indeed, he could scarce help himself, he said, as there was nobody else he could get at present.
"'You must be a thorough good sailor by this time, Collins,' continued he, 'if you have gone on at the rate you used to do. I remember how fond you were of having charge for a minute or two of the old Orion, or when I let you put her about in my watch. Why they called you "Young Green" I never could understand, unless it was ut lucus a non lucendo, as we used to say at Eton, you know. Well, what do you say?' Now, as you may suppose, the idea of boxing about St Helena, for Heaven knew how long, didn't at all suit my liking—with the thought of the Seringapatam steering away from Bombay the whole time, and a hundred notions of Violet Hyde in India—'twould have driven me madder than the Temple did Captain Wallis: but it was only the first part of my mind I gave Lord Frederick. 'What!' exclaimed he, with a flush over his face, and drawing up his tall figure, 'you didn't suppose, I should remain here? Why, the Hebe is on her way for Calcutta and Canton, and will sail as soon as the Conqueror arrives at Jamestown with Admiral Plampin.' 'Your lordship is very kind,' said I, looking down to cover my delight; 'and if I am not worthy of the post it shan't be my fault, Lord Frederick.' 'Ah, very good!' said he smiling; ''tis an opportunity you oughtn't to let slip, Collins, let me tell you! For my own part, I should just as soon cut out a pirate in the Straits of Malacca as a French brig in the Channel; and there are plenty of them, I hear, there. As for a chase, sir, I flatter myself you won't easily see a finer thing than the Hebe spreading her cloth after one of those fast proas will be—I think you are just the fellow to make her walk, too, Mr Collins—pah! to compare a day on the Derby turf with that, would be a sin! You have no idea, sir, how one longs for a fair horizon again, and brisk breezes, when so ineffably tired out of all those ball-rooms, and such things as you see about town just now—only I fear I shall wish to be second lieutenant again, eh?'