"Well, the morning came, when we weighed anchor from St James's Bay for sea, in company with the prize. It wasn't more than ten or eleven days since we had arrived in the Podargus, but I was as weary with the sight of St Helena as if I'd lived there a year. The frigate's lovely hull, and her taut spars, spreading the square stretch of her white canvas sideways to the Trade, put new life into me. Slowly as we dropped the peaks of the island on our lee-quarter, 'twas something to feel yourself travelling the same road as the Indiaman once more, with the odds of a mail coach, too, to a French diligence. What chance might turn up to bring us together, I certainly didn't see; but that night, when we and the schooner were the only things in the horizon, both fast plunging, close-hauled, on a fresh breeze, at the distance of a mile, I set my mind, for the first time, more at ease. 'Luck and the anchors stowed!' thought I, 'and hang all forethoughts!' I walked the weather quarter-deck in my watch as pleasantly as might be, with now and then a glance forward at Snelling, as he yarned at the fife-rail beside a groggy old mate, and at times a glimmer of the schooner's hull on our lee-beam, rising wet out of the dusk, under charge of our third lieutenant.
"It was about a week afterwards, and we began to have rough touches of Cape weather, pitching away on cross seas, and handing our gallant-sails oftener of a night, that Lord Frederick said to me one evening, before going down to his cabin, 'Mr Collins, I really hope we shall not find your Indiaman at Cape Town, after all!' 'Indeed, Lord Frederick!' said I respectfully enough; but it was the very thing I hoped myself. 'Yes, sir,' continued he; 'as I received strict injunctions by Admiral Plampin to arrest Lieutenant Westwood if we fell in with her there, and otherwise, to send the schooner in her track, even if it were to Bombay.' 'The deuce!' I thought, 'are we never to be done with this infernal affair?' ''Tis excessively disagreeable,' continued the captain, swinging his gold eyeglass round his finger by the chain, as was his custom when bothered, and looking with one eye all the while at the schooner. 'A beautiful craft, by-the-way, Mr Collins,' said he, 'even within sight of the Hebe.' 'She is so, my lord,' said I; 'if she had only had a sensible boatswain, even, to put the sticks aloft in her.' 'I say, Mr Collins,' went on his lordship, musingly, 'I think I have it, though—the way to get rid of this scrape!'
"I waited and waited, however, for Lord Frederick to mention this; and to no purpose, apparently, as he went below without saying a word more about it."
CHAPTER XXIII
"Well, ma'am," continued our narrator, addressing himself, as usual, to his matronly relative in the chair, and with the accustomed catch-word, which was like the knotting together of his interrupted yarn: "well—it was between a fortnight and three weeks after losing sight of St Helena, that, being at last fairly in the latitude of the Cape, the frigate and schooner tacked in company, and stood close-hauled on a wind to the eastward. By the middle watch that night, when the moon set, we could make out the long flat top of Table Mountain heaving in sight off the horizon over against her. Next day, in fact, we were both of us quietly at anchor outside of the shipping in Table Bay; Cape Town glittering along on the green flat amongst the trees to southward, with the hills on each side of it like some big African lion lying on guard close by; while Table Mountain hove up, square-shouldered, blue to the left, four thousand feet high, as bare and steep as a wall, with the rocks and trees creeping up from the foot, and the wreaths of light cloud resting halfway, like nothing else but the very breakwater of the world's end. The sea stretched broad off to north and west, and a whole fleet of craft lay betwixt us and the land—half of them Indiamen—amongst which, you may be sure, I kept a pretty sharp look-out with the glass, to see if the Seringapatam were there still.
"I was soon saved further pains on this head, however, when shortly afterwards the frigate was beset by a whole squadron of bumboats, shoving against each other, and squabbling in all sorts of nigger tongues, who should be first: the chief of them being in evident command of a fat old Dutch Vrouw, with an immense blue umbrella over her, two greasy-looking Hottentot rowers in blankets, and a round-faced Dutch boy, the picture of herself, steering the boat; as the old lady made a clear berth for herself, by laying about her with her blue umbrella, till she was close under our quarter, sitting all the while with the broad round stern of her bright-coloured gown spread over a couple of beer-barrels, like a peacock's train. In two minutes more the little fellow was up the side, flourishing a bundle of papers under the first lieutenant's very nose, and asking the ship's custom, even whilst the sentries were ordering them all off. A midshipman took this youth by the cuff of the neck, and was handing him rather roughly along to the care of the purser's steward, when I stepped betwixt them; and a bumboat being the best directory on the point, of course, I soon found the old lady had had dealings with the Seringapatam, which her bluff-built little progeny described as a very good ship indeed, all having paid their bills, except one young officer, who had left a balance standing, for which he had given a letter to his brother in a ship that was to come after. As for the Indiaman herself, the Dutch boy said she had sailed about a week before our arrival, along with two others; and he was anxious to know if we were the vessel in question. I accordingly unfolded the open letter, which was addressed: 'Thomas Spoonbill Simm, Esquire, of His Britannic Majesty's ship Nincompoop (or otherwise)'; and it ran somehow thus:—'Hon. East India Company's ship Seringapatam, Table Bay, September 1, 1816.—My dear Brother,—This is to certify that I have eaten four dozen and a half of eggs, supplied by the worthy Vrouw Dulcken, the bearer of this, whom I can recommend as an old screw, and am due her for the same the sum of nine shillings and sixpence sterling, which you will kindly pay her, taking her receipt or mark, unless you are willing to forfeit our family watch, herewith deposited by me in the hands of said Mother Dulcken. I may add that, in justice to the worthy Vrouw, three of the above-mentioned eggs ought to be charged as fowls, which, by-the-way, I did not consume; and, with love to all at home, remain your affectionate brother, John Simm, H.E.I.C.S.—P.S. The watch I have discovered to be pinchbeck, and it does not go; so that a sad trick must have been originally played upon our venerated uncle, from whom it descended.—J. S.'
"This precious epistle was, without doubt, a joke of the fat mid Simm, who used to come such rigs over Ford the cadet, and that jumped overboard one night by mistake out of the Indiaman's quarter-boat, during the voyage. As for the existence of his brother Thomas, or the chance of his touching at that port, I set them down with the coming home of Vanderdecken; though the thought of this young scamp of a sea-lawyer breakfasting for a fortnight so comfortably, only a few feet distant from my charmer's state-room, sent me all abroad again, and right into the Indiaman's decks, by this time far out of sight of land. Piece of impudent roguery though it was, I was actually loath to part with the scrawl, which the reefer had fisted, no doubt, on the lid of his chest—probably with a pipe in his mouth at the time, it smelt so of tobacco—only seven days before: I could even see the grin on his fat face as he wrote it below in the steerage, with his chin up, and his eyes looking down past his pipe; while the little Dutch boy's round flat frontispiece glistened as he peered up at me, in the evident notion of my being the brother expected.
"In fact, ma'am, I was so soft as to intend paying the nine-and-sixpence myself, and keeping the letter, when I was startled to see the old lady herself had contrived to be hoisted on board amongst her cabbages; and having got wind of the thing, seemingly, she came waddling towards me to hand over Simm's watch to boot. In another half-minute the letter was being read aloud in the midst of the whole gun-room officers, amongst roars of laughter; the honest old Dutchwoman holding aloft the precious article, and floundering through to find out the rightful owner, as everyone claimed it and offered the nine-and-sixpence; while for my part I tried first to get down one hatchway, then another; and Lord Frederick himself came up on the starboard side of the quarter-deck in the height of the scene. Indeed, I believe it was a joke for months after in the Hebe, of a night, to say it was 'the second lieutenant's watch'; the sole revenge I had being to leave Mother Dulcken and her boy to expect the 'ship that was coming after.'
"A Government boat came aboard in the afternoon; and as soon as it left us Lord Frederick took his gig and steered for a frigate lying some distance off, which had the harbour-flag hoisted at her main, being the only man-o'-war besides ourselves, and commanded by a senior captain.