"'Hush, sir, for heaven's sake,' said he, making some extraordinary sign, which I didn't understand; 'it'll all be right in the end, Mr Collins. Now then, sir,' to someone in the boat alongside, as he carefully handed him the accommodation-ropes, 'here you are—hold on, sir—so-o!' This was a rather youngish fellow in a huge pilot-coat and a glazed cap, with some kind of uniform inside, and a large breastpin in his shirt, who handed me a paper the moment he stood firm on deck, without speaking a word; though, by the light of the deck-lantern, I didn't much like the look of his foxy sort of face, with the whiskers on it coming forward from both cheeks to his mouth, nor the glance he gave round the schooner with his pair of quick sharp little eyes. 'Much more like a custom-house officer than a cook!' thought I, 'unless we mean to have a French one'; but what was my astonishment, on opening the paper, to find him called 'Gilbert Webb, harbour master's assistant, hereby authorised by the Admiralty Court, sitting in Cape Town, to take charge of the doubtful vessel described in her papers as the Ludovico, belonging to Monte Video—from the officer commanding the prize crew of his Brittanic Majesty's ship Hebe.' My first thought was to have Mr Gilbert Webb pitched over into his boat again, when Lord Frederick's own signature met my eye at the bottom of the paper, addressed below to 'Lieutenant Collins of His Majesty's schooner Aniceta at sea.'
"A wonderfully mysterious squint from Snelling, behind the officer, was sufficient to clinch the matter in my own mind, showing that the reefer was as sharp as a needle; and I handed back the document to the harbour gentleman, with a 'Very well, sir, that will do.' 'I suppose I'd better have my men up, Lieutenant Collins?' said he, with a quick pert kind of accent, which made me set him down at once for a Londoner, while at the same time he seemed impatient, as I thought, to get the management. 'Why, sir,' said I, 'I suppose you had.'
"Hereupon up mounted four or five decent enough looking stevedores [24] —one or two of whom had rather the air of sailors, the rest being broad-beamed, short-legged Dutchmen, with trousers like pillow-slips—followed by a whole string of fourteen or fifteen Indian Lascars, their bundles in their hands, and an ugly old serdug at their head; while a lame, broken-down, debauched-like fellow of a man-o'-war's-man, that Snelling had found sitting on a timberhead ashore, got aboard with our own boat's crew. Our gangway was choke-full, to my fresh dismay, for, to get rid of such a tagrag-and-bobtail, in case of running to sea, was impossible; even if they weren't odds against us, here was it likely to get a thick night, the swell growing under the schooner till she began to jerk at her anchor, head to wind, like a young filly at a manger; so that dropping them back into their boat when needful, as I intended at first, was out of the question for the present. I found from the harbour officer that the number of hands would all be required with the morning tide, when his orders were to have the schooner towed in opposite the Battery Dock, especially as there was much chance of the wind blowing strong from seaward next day. The swell on the water, he said, was such that, after putting off, he thought of going back again till the tide began to turn; if he had not been encouraged to stick to it and keep on by the midshipman, whom he fell in with near the quay. This piece of news was the finish to the rage I felt brewing in me, vexed as I naturally was to give up the notion of a free cruise, in command of a craft like the schooner; and as soon as Mr Webb was comfortable in the cabin, over a tumbler of stiff grog and some cold beef, I sent for Snelling to my own cupboard of a state-room.
"'You cursed unlucky little imp, you!' I burst out, the moment he made his appearance, 'what's the meaning of this, sirrah, eh?' 'What is it, if you please, sir?' said Snelling, pretending to hold down his shock-head like a frightened schoolboy, and looking up all the time both at me and the lamp at once, while he swayed with the uneasy heave of the deck in such a way as made me grip him by the arm in a perfect fury, fancying he had got drunk ashore. 'You young blackguard, you!' said I, shaking him, 'didn't I tell you to get hands—didn't you know I meant to—to——' 'Oh yes, Mr Collins,' gasped the reefer, 'I did indeed—you meant to cut and run—I saw it by your eye, sir, and—don't shake me any more, sir, or you'll spoil my hair—and I don't deserve it—it's—all right!' And on my letting him go, the ugly little scamp sunk down on a chair with his eyes starting from his head, and a leer like a perfect demon incarnate: but so perfectly laughable it was, not to mention the air of complete confidence between us that he threw into it, that I sat down myself, ready to grin at my bad luck. 'Well, Mister Snelling,' said I quietly, 'you are a touch beyond me! Let's have the joke, at least—out with it, man, else another shake may be——'
"The reefer pointed with his thumb over his shoulder to the cabin, shoved his chin forward, and whispered, 'Why, sir, I'm only doubtful whether you could make him third officer—but at any rate, he'll always be useful at a rope, Mr Collins—won't he, sir?' I gave Snelling one look, meant to be as grave as an Old Bailey chaplain's, but it wouldn't do—my conscience wouldn't stand it—in fact the very self-same notion seemed to me to have been creeping into my mind. 'You—young—rascal!' was all I could manage to say, before making bolt to go on deck. 'By-the-by, Mister Snelling,' said I, turning and looking down from the hatchway, 'you must want a glass of grog—tell the boy to let you have some—and go and keep the officer company, sir.'
"By this time it was raining hard, the half-moon coming out at moments and shining through it with a sudden sharp gleam, in some gust of the wind off the land—showing the swell in as far as the wet white custom-house and the bare quays, the ships with their hazy lights all hither and thither, while Table Mountain was to be seen now and then peering half over the mist, first one corner and then another, of a colour like dead ashes. One time I looked down toward the dusky little cabin, where the midshipman, quite in his element, was sitting with the harbour officer, the lamp jerking and making wild swings betwixt them, while Snelling evidently egged on his companion to drink; then I gave a glance seaward, where there was nothing but a glimmer of rain and spray along the dark hollows of the water.
"I couldn't make up my mind, all I could do—it was too barefaced a thing to slip from the roadstead with a breeze blowing off-shore; but the worst of it was, that I didn't feel easy at the idea of parting with an anchor in the circumstances, not to say carrying off the Government people, unless forced to it. I accordingly went below to mix myself a stiffener, and found the officer a cool head, for, in spite of all Snelling could do, the reefer himself had got provoked, whereas the sharp Mr Webb was only a little brisker than before. 'A rough sort of night,' said I, nodding to him, as I knocked the water out of my cap. 'Well, it seems,' said he, free and easy. 'S'pose I go on deck then, gentlemen—I've refreshed, I assure you, so you needn't trouble about this 'ere schooner no farther—glad to get quit of it and turn in, I desay lieutenant?' 'No trouble in the world, Mr Webb,' said I, going on with my mixture, 'far from it; but sit down a minute, pray, sir—Mr Snelling here will take charge of the deck for us in the meantime'; and Snelling vanished at once, Mr Webb apparently flattered at my wishing his company. 'Will that cable of yours hold, think ye, Lieutenant Collins?' asked he, filling up another glass. 'Why,' said I, almost laughing, 'to tell you the truth, I begin to feel rather doubtful of it.' 'What!' broke out the harbour officer, starting up, 'then I must 'ave another put down immediately: why, what's the effect, sir—we'll be carried out to sea!' 'You said it exactly, Mr Webb,' I said: ''twould have been much worse, I suppose, if we were driven ashore, though! Now look you, if I were to let go a second anchor at present, I couldn't light upon a better plan either to break her back or lose both anchors in the end, from the difference of strain on the two cables with this ground-swell. The fact is, my good fellow, you're evidently not fit to take charge at present.'
"'What, lieutenant!' said he, looking fierce and foolish at the same time, 'here's strange lang'age to a Gov'ment officer, sir; I hask the meanin' of it at once, mister!' 'But I depend a good deal on your knowledge of Table Bay weather,' I continued, leaning back with my weather eye screwed to bear upon him. 'D'ye think this wind likely to moderate soon, sir? come now.' 'No,' replied he sulkily, 'I'm sure it won't; and to-morrow it's certain to blow back ten times worse.' 'Then, Mr Webb,' said I, rising, 'you oughtn't to have come aboard to-night; as the short and the long of it is, I shall get the schooner an offing the first possible moment!' The officer stared at me in a bewildered manner; and as for the schooner, she seemed to be bolting and pitching in a way worse than before, with now and then a plunge of the swell on her broadside, as if she had been under weigh. Suddenly Snelling lifted the skylight-frame and screamed down into the cabin: 'Mr Collins, Mr Collins! she's been dragging her anchor for the last ten minutes, sir!'
"I sprang on deck at two bounds; the schooner had somehow or other got her anchor out of hold at the time, with the cable as taut as a fiddle-string. It was quite dark aloft, and not a vestige of Table Mountain to be seen, though the moonshine, low down to westward, brought out two or three tracks of light along the stretch of water, and you saw the lights in the ships slowly sweeping past. Where we happened to be, it blew two ways at once, as is often the case in Table Bay, round the bluffs of the mountain, and as soon as she brought up again with a surge at the windlass, the heave of a long swell took her right on the quarter, lifting her in to her anchor again with a slack of the hawser, at which every second man sung out to 'hold on!' Over she went to port, a sea washing up the starboard side, and throwing a few dozen bucketfuls at once fair into the companion, where our friend the harbour officer was sticking at the time; so down plumped Mr Webb along with it, and the booby hatch was shoved close after him, while the poor devils of Lascars were huddled together as wet as swabs in the lee of the caboose forward. 'A hand to the wheel!' shouted I, as soon as I recovered myself; when to my great surprise I saw Snelling's new hand, poor creature as I'd thought him, standing with a spoke in each fist, as cool and steady as possible, and his eye fixed on me in the true knowing way which I felt could be trusted to. 'Jib there!' I sung out, 'see all clear to run up a few hanks of the jib—stand by to cut the cable at the bitts!' 'Ay, ay, sir,' answered Snelling, who was working away with the harbour men, his bare head soaked, and altogether more like an imp than a young gentleman of the navy—'all's clear, sir.'
"Five minutes I daresay we stood, everyone in the same position, while I waited for a good moment in the run of the swell looking into the binnacle; till she hung slack, as it were, in a wide seething trough of the sea, when I signed to the man behind me to put the helm gradually to starboard. I glanced at the fellow again, caught his sharp weatherly eye once more—then putting both hands to my mouth I sung out to bowse on the jib-halliards. 'Now—cut—the cable!' shouted I, springing forward in my anxiety.