"Till it got dark I could see the crews of the nearest merchantmen looking over their bulwarks at us and our prize, apparently comparing the schooner with the frigate, and speculating on her character, as she lay a few fathoms off the Hebe's quarter, both of us rising and falling in turn on the long heave of the Cape swell from seaward. 'Twas hard to say, in fact, so far as their hulls went, which was the most beautiful sample of its kind; though the schooner's French-fashioned sticks and offhand sort of rigging, showed rather like jury-gear beside the tall regular sticks aloft of the Hebe's decks, with all her hamper perfect to a tee. The Hebe's men very naturally considered their own ship a model for everything that floated—a sort of a Solomon's temple, in short; and to hear the merciless way they ran down the Indiamen all round would have raised the whole homeward-bound fleet against us; whereas the schooner was our own, at any rate, and she was spoken of much in the manner one mentions an unfortunate orphan, as good as already christened by the name of the Young Hebe.
"This our learned chaplain said was quite improper, and he gave another name in place of it—the Aniceta—which meant, as he observed, the Hebe's youngest daughter; so the Aniceta she was called, happening to be a title that went, according to the boatswain, full as sweetly through the sheave-hole.
"Next day the schooner had landed not only her passengers from St Helena, but the prisoners also, as we still understood the French and their Kroomen to be. Not long after that Lord Frederick came back from Cape Town, looking grave, and went straight down to his cabin, or 'cabins,' as his lordship preferred to have it said. The first lieutenant dined that day with the captain; but they could scarcely have finished when the 'young gentlemen,' who had been as usual from the reefer's mess, came up with a message from the captain, that his lordship would be glad if I would join the first lieutenant and himself in a glass of wine. I found them sitting at the side of the table nearest the open port, with the decanters between them, and the broad bright bay in full sight to the shore and the foot of Table Mountain, which rose up blocking the port with the top of it beyond view; the sounds of the merchantmen clicking at their heavy windlasses, and hoisting in water-casks, floated slowly in from every side, while the schooner had hauled on her cable more abreast of the frigate, leaving the sight clear over the eddy round her low counter.
"'A lovely piece of workmanship, certainly!' observed Lord Frederick thoughtfully, as he leant back swinging his eyeglass round his finger, with the other hand in the breast of his waistcoat, and looking out at what was seen of the schooner. 'And how one might have improved her spars, too!' said Mr Hall, wistfully. 'I should have recommended longer lower-masts altogether, Lord Frederick, and a thorough overhaul, I may say, from the combings upwards!' 'I would not have her hull touched for the world, Mr Hall!' said the captain; ''tis too——excessively provoking, at least! But pass the bottles to Mr Collins, if you please.' I had taken a chair, and quietly filled my glass, wondering what could be the matter, when his lordship turned to me and said, 'Do you know, Mr Collins, this schooner of ours is likely to be laid up in Chancery, heaven knows how long. The Admiralty Court ashore are doubtful of condemning her, apparently, and she must either be sent home or to Monte Video, or somewhere, where the master of her claims to belong!' 'Indeed, my lord,' said I, setting down my glass, 'that is curious.' 'Curious, indeed, sir!' replied he, biting his lips, 'though, after all, we really can scarce say what she is to be condemned for—only in the meantime I sail to-morrow for India.' 'She's French to the backbone, that I'll swear, Lord Frederick!' I said; 'and what's more, she was——' 'Ah,' broke in the captain, 'I know, I know; but the less we say of that, in present circumstances, the better! Once get her entangled with politics, and we may give her up altogether.' Lord Frederick twisted his eyeglass round his forefinger faster than before, still watching the schooner; the first lieutenant held up his claret betwixt himself and the light, and I sipped mine. 'I tell you what, gentlemen,' exclaimed his lordship, suddenly, 'I must have that schooner at any cost!—What is to be done, Mr Hall?' 'She'd be of great service in the China seas, my lord, certainly,' said the first lieutenant, looking thoughtfully into his empty glass; 'a perfect treasure for light service, especially if new sparred and——' I noticed Lord Frederick glancing sideways at me, as I thought, with a slight gleam in his eye; and accordingly I suggested that he might buy her from the Frenchman himself; a very poor idea, no doubt, as both the captain and first luff seemed to think, and we all three kept eyeing her doubtfully through the port, without a word.
"At this time the schooner's counter had been slowly sheering towards the frigate's beam, owing to the ebb-tide, and her holding only by a single cable, till her stern began to show right opposite the cabin, I should say not twenty feet off. Lord Frederick put his glass to his eye, and was peering through it, when he remarked that they had brought up rather too near, leaving scarce room for the schooner to swing as she did, earlier than we, so that she would be in danger in getting foul of the frigate's cables. 'The worst of it is, Lord Frederick,' said I, 'that in case of a gale from seaward here, she might have to slip and run upon very short warning, whereas the Hebe has plenty of ground-tackle to let her ride it out. Considering it was Table Bay, at this season, he ought to have kept her a clearer berth for herself, or else have gone well outside!' 'Ah!' said Lord Frederick quickly, meeting my eye for half-a-minute, till the gleam came into his again; and somehow or other mine must have caught it, though I must say the notion that struck me then all at once wasn't in my head before. 'Do you know, that's well thought of, Collins!' said his lordship. 'You've weathered the Cape before, by-the-by?' 'A dozen times, Lord Frederick,' said I; when a regularly jovial roar of laughter broke fair through the port into the cabin from the schooner's taffrail, as she sheered end-on to the frigate's quarter, and Lord Frederick leant forward with the glass screwed into his right eye to see along their decks, which were covered aft with an awning like the open gable of a tent at a fair. 'Singular!' said he; 'by the Lord Harry, who or what can that be Mr Hammond has got there?' Dangling over the French schooner's taffrail were to be seen the soles of two immense boots, with calves and knees to match, and a pair of tightish striped trousers worked up more than halfway, till you saw the tops of the stockings; just beyond the knees was the face leaning back in the shade of the awning and a straw hat together, out of which a huge green cabbage-leaf hung like a flap over one eye, while the other kept gazing in a half-closed sleepy sort of way at the sky, and the red end of a cigar winked and glowed in the midst of the puffs of smoke lower down. The first lieutenant started up shocked at the sight, the noble captain of the Hebe sat with his eyeglass fixed, between amusement and wonder; for my own part, when the voice of this same prodigy broke all of a sudden on us out of the awning, in a mixture of stuttering, hiccuping, Yankee drawling, and puffs at the cigar, 'twas all I could do to hold on, with the knowledge of where I was. 'Wall now, general,' said the American, as if he were talking to someone aloft or in the sky, 'ye-you're qui-quite wrong—I ki-kick-calc'late I've fit a deal more be-be-battles than you have—I re-respect you, Ge-Ge-General Washington; but I ho-ho-hope you know who—hic—who I am!' Here Mr Daniel Snout, who was in a state of beastly intoxication, swayed himself up bodily into the schooner's taffrail, and sat with his arms folded, his long legs swinging over the stern, and his head trying to keep steady, as he scowled solemnly aloft over the frigate's mizzenroyal-mast-head; while the third lieutenant, Mr Hammond, and the master's mate he had aboard with him, could be heard laughing at his back, as if they had gone mad—Hammond being a wild sprig of an Irishman, who would go any length for a piece of fun.
"Just then the American's one eye lighted on the side of the frigate, till it settled lazily on the port of the captain's cabin: first he seemed to notice Lord Frederick Bury, and then myself, the first lieutenant having just recovered himself enough to rush toward the door to get on deck. Daniel himself surveyed me scornfully for a moment, then with a sort of doubtful frown, and a gravity that passes me to describe, unless by the look of an old cock a-drinking—evidently trying to recollect me. 'Hallo, mister!' shouted he suddenly, 'you haven't touched those notions of mine, I hope.' With that he made a spring off where he sat, as if to come towards us—no doubt thinking of the Seringapatam, and the valuables he had left aboard, without seeing the water between; and a pretty deep dive Mr Snout would have made of it, into an ebb-tide that would have swept him under the frigate's bottom, if Mr Hammond and the midshipman hadn't both sprung forward in time to catch him by the neck of the coat. There, accordingly, was the Yankee hanging like a spread eagle over the schooner's taffrail, yelling and turning round at the same time like a fowl on a spit—the third lieutenant's and the mate's faces two pictures of dismay, as they held on, at finding for the first time where the schooner had shied them round to, with their two pairs of eyes fair in front of the captain's eyeglass—while Mr Hall was singing out like thunder from the deck above us, 'The schooner ahoy!—d'ye see where you've got to, sir? Haul ahead on that cable, d'ye hear, you lubbers, and keep clear of the ship!'
"'Mr Collins,' said his lordship quietly to me, as soon as he could keep his countenance, and looking the sterner for the trouble he was put to in doing it, 'you will get your things and go aboard the schooner directly—take her in charge, sir, and send Mr Hammond back here.' 'Very well, my lord,' said I, waiting in the doorway for something more, which, from something in Lord Frederick's look, I had reason to expect, knowing it of old. 'I can only spare you a dozen of the men she has,' added he; 'but if you choose, you can send ashore at once to pick up a few makeshifts, or anything you find!' 'Ay, ay, my lord,' said I; 'the best hand for that would be Mr Snelling, if I may take him, Lord Frederick?' 'Oh, certainly,' was the answer; 'and harkye, Collins, you had better shift your berth a few cable-lengths farther off, or more, if you please.' 'One thing, my lord,' said I, stooping down to see through the port, 'I don't much like the heavy ground-swell that begins to meet the ebb, and I fancy it won't be long ere Table Mountain spreads its supper-cloth—in which case I'd consider it necessary to slip cable and run out at once, though I mightn't get in again so easily. Am I to find the frigate here again, Lord Frederick?'
'Deuce take it, man—no!' said his lordship. He turned his back to hide the evident twinkle of his eye. 'Should we part company, of course you make for the Bay of Bengal! You can't be sure of the Hebe, short of the Sandheads—and if not there, then opposite Fort William, at Calcutta.' 'Very good, my lord,' said I, and had made my bow to go on deck, when Lord Frederick called me back. 'By-the-by,' said he hastily, 'about that Indiaman of yours, Collins—she is here no doubt?' 'No, Lord Frederick,' answered I, 'I believe she sailed a week ago.' 'Dear me, the deuce!' exclaimed he; 'why, I meant to have sent to-morrow to have your friend Westwood arrested and brought aboard!' I started at this, on which his lordship explained that if Westwood got to Bombay, whither the Seringapatam was bound, the authorities there would have news of the thing by this time, and could send him overland at once to England, which would be far worse for him than being carried to Calcutta, where his uncle the Councillor's interest might do something for him. 'The best thing you can do, Collins,' added Lord Frederick, 'if you are obliged to run out to sea, is to look after that Indiaman! With such a neat thing of a sea-boat under you, you might do anything you please; so cruise to windward or leeward in chase, find her out and take out Westwood bodily—lose him afterwards in the Hoogley, if you like—carry away those old spars of hers, and send up new ones—only don't lose the schooner, I beg; so good-bye to you, my dear fellow, lest we should not meet on this side the line again!' 'Good-bye, my lord!' said I cheerfully, and hurried on deck, understanding all he wanted as well as if I'd been ordered to set her jib that moment and heave up anchor. In ten minutes I was over the frigate's side, and in ten more Hammond was back in her, with the men who were to leave; while I sent my baggage below, set the hands to work shifting the schooner's berth, and by sundown we were lying beyond hail of the ship, opposite the custom-house, and a long line of a main street in Cape Town, where we could see the people, the carriages, and the Dutch bullock-carts passing up and down; while Table Mountain hove away up off the steep Devil's Hill and the Lion's Rump, to the long level line a-top as blue and bare as an iron monument, and throwing a shadow to the right over the peaks near at hand.
"Our friend from the United States being by this time in quite an oblivious condition, the first thing I did was to have him put quietly into the boat with which Mr Snelling was to go ashore for fresh hands, and I instructed the reefer to get clear of him anyhow he liked, if it was only above tide-mark. When they were gone I walked the schooner's little quarter-deck in the dusk by myself, till the half-moon rose with a ghostly copper-like glare over the hollow in the Lion's Rump, streaking across the high face of Table Mountain, and bringing out all its rifts and wrinkles again. The land-breeze began to blow steadily with a long sighing sweep from the north-east, meeting the heavy swell that set into the broad bay; and the schooner, being a light crank little craft, got rather uneasy; whereas you could see the lights of the frigate heaving and settling leisurely, less than half-a-mile off. I had only six or seven good hands aboard altogether at the time, which, with those the midshipman had, were barely sufficient to work her in such seas; so with all I had to do, with the difficulty of getting men in the circumstances, a long voyage before us, and things that might turn up, as I hoped, to require a touch of the regular service, why the very pleasure of having a command made me a good deal anxious. Even of that I didn't feel sure; and I kept watching Table Mountain, eager for the least bit of haze to come across the top of it, as well as sorry I had sent Snelling ashore. 'I'd give a hundred pounds at this moment,' thought I, 'to have had Bob Jacobs here!'
"As the moon got higher, I could see the swell washing up between the different merchantmen in sight, into their shadows, and heavy enough some of them seemed to roll round their cables, betwixt a breeze and a swell running the contrary ways; first one let go a second anchor, and then another, to help their heads shoreward; but still there was no danger, as things went. It wasn't long before I made out two boats coming from toward the town, round the stern of one of the ships, the frigate lying betwixt her and us, so that they took her by the way, and a good deal of hailing seemed to pass between them. I could even see epaulets glisten over the Hebe's quarter, as if there was a stir made aboard; after which the boats were plainly pulling for the schooner. What all this might mean I couldn't very well conceive, unless it were either Snelling come back already, or else some hands Lord Frederick himself had provided before this, as I saw both boats were full of people. 'Forward there!' I sung out, 'hail those boats.' 'Ay, ay, the schooner ahoy!' was the answer in a sharp voice from the headmost of them, 'from the shore—all right! Stand by to heave us a line, will ye?' Next came a hail from Snelling, in our own gig; so I at once gave orders to heave them a rope and have both boats brought under the gangway, naturally supposing the sharp little fellow had come some marvellous good speed in shipping hands. As soon as he jumped on deck, I accordingly inquired how many men he had brought, when to my great surprise he informed me there was only one, 'a scuffy sort of a swab,' as he expressed it, 'who would do for cook!' 'The devil he will! you young rascal,' I broke out.