"The schooner rose away from her anchor on the heavy roll of the sea; I saw two quick strokes of the axe on the instant, and she was spinning head off from the wind, heeling over betwixt the force of it and the ground-swell together, while the mass of black water was washing bodily away with us; the new helmsman showing down below me he as leant to the wheel, like somebody at the foot of a slide. If he had'nt helped her at the moment with a back turn of the spokes to port, 'twould have been all up with us. As it was, the schooner fell off gallantly in his hands, with a sliding surge into the lee of the next swell, that buried her sharp bows in the green sea till it foamed about our very shoulders as we hung on like grim death to the weather bulwark. She was just shaking herself free, and rising like a buoy over the broad tops of the waves, when Snelling, myself, and two or three of the men staggered down to her mainmast to swing up the throat-halliards, letting her feel a little of the boom mainsail; and we had scarce belayed, as the last glimpse of the frigate's lights was caught astern of us, heaving and setting, as she rode with her two bower anchors down; we had driven past close enough to have heard the creak of her hamper aloft. After that I had the fore-staysail set on her, then the reefed mainsail, and the lively schooner yielded to the long rolling seas so well, as very soon to make her own weather of it, especially since—clear of the high land about Table Bay—it was blowing only a strong breeze; and the more I began to feel master of her, the more inclined I was to let her show her good qualities.
"Such a craft I never had had the full management of before in my life; and you may easily fancy how I felt at dividing the hands into the two watches, giving little Snelling command of one, as first mate, and picking out our men in turn. I looked round amongst mine, rather at a loss for one to make a second mate for the cruise, though there were three prime enough man-o'-war's-men, and I had chosen one of the Government officer's gang for his activity. As for the Lascars, we slumped in half of the number to each of us, for make-weights—when Snelling's fresh hand, who had fallen to my share, caught my eye again as he stood at the wheel. Every half-spoke he gave the schooner told; she was topping the heavy seas as they rose, and taking them just where they melted one to the other, with a long floating cleave that carried her counter fairly free of the after-run, though nearly right before the wind: the main-boom had been guyed over to the lee-quarter, till a third of the sail hung clear of her hull, and the breeze swept into the hollow of it, thick with spray. The light from the little binnacle shone up distinctly on the man's face, and with all the desperate, used-up, marbled sort of look of it, like one getting the better of a long spree ashore, I thought there was something uncommonly promising about him, not to say greatly above the run of foremast men. The wet, the wind, and the work he was at took off the seediness of his clothes; even the old rag of a handkerchief round his hairy neck had got a gloss to it, and he stood handling the wheel with a strange mixture of recklessness and care, as he glanced from the compass to the gaff of the mainsail against the scud, and down again.
"The very contrast between the man's manner and his outward rig was sufficient to strike one, though plenty of seamen are to be found in the like state ashore; but what fixed me to him above all was the expression in those two keen, searching, living eyes of his, when they once or twice met mine on their way from aloft to the compass-boxes. 'Twas as if they'd woke up since he came aboard out of a sleepy, maudlin condition, with the 'blue-devils,' or scarce fully out of 'em; like a sick man's in the lull of a fever, suddenly seen watching you out of the dusk of the bed, when one happens to glance up from the nurse's seat.
"'What's your name, my man?' asked I, stepping aft to the binnacle. 'My name is Jones, sir,' said he readily. 'And your first name?' I said. 'Jack,' was the answer in an offhand way, with a hitch of one shoulder, and a weather-spoke to the wheel; spoken in an accent you'd have expected more in a West-End drawing-room than from a common sailor. 'Ah,' said I sharply. 'Jack Jones? I wonder how many Jack Joneses there are afloat! An able seaman, I think, Jones?' 'Why, sir,' replied the man, 'I never rate myself, sir—'tis all one to me, able, ordinary, landsman, or boy—I carry no papers, and leave my betters to rate me.' 'Where were you last, my man?' I asked; whereupon I met such a cool, steady, deep look out of the fellow's strange light-coloured eyes, bloodshot as they were with drinking, that I felt almost our very two souls jostle in it; as much as to say: To all eternity fathom me if you can! 'Well, I forget where, sir,' said he, lowering his look to the compass-box again; 'always the way with me after a trip, a cruise, a voyage, or whatever it may be. I've got—ha!' and he yielded his body coolly to a jerk of the schooner's wheel. 'A sweet craft this, sir, but a little ticklish!' 'You've got what?' said I, not unwilling to wear out the time. 'I've got—no memory!'
"Still there was somewhat so gloomy and mournful in the next glance aloft, I don't know how it was, but I felt inclined to offer him a mate's place on trial, and so I hinted, if he knew half as well how to handle a craft as he did of steering her. To my own surprise, Jones's wonder didn't seem to be roused at the notion, except that he gave me another quick glance, from head to foot, with a queer smile that struck me as if I were being questioned, instead of him; then he looked down over his own outfit, judging by which you'd have said he'd been shipwrecked. 'Well,' said I, 'I daresay you've been hard put to it, somehow, Jones—so as soon as you leave the wheel, you can go below to the steward, and get a seagoing suit of my own, till we see Calcutta, when your mate's wages will set you all right again.' The man touched his battered old straw hat; but I noticed his eyes gleam for a moment by the binnacle light, and a strange twitch run round his mouth at the mention of the mate's wages, the only way I could account for it at the time being his late hard-up condition; and nothing to my mind was more deucedly pitiable than to see the thought of a few paltry additional rupees light up a head like that, with the glistening sort of expression of a miser as I fancied.
"The man had a head on him, in fact, when you eyed him, fit for a gentleman's shoulders, or more—his hair and his whiskers curly and dark, draggled though they were with the rain, not to say Cape Town mud—while the wearing away of the hair about the temples, and the red grog-streaks in the veins of his face, made him, no doubt, a dozen years older to appearance than he was. For my part I was quite convinced already, this same Jack Jones hadn't been sent out a cabin boy; there was not only a touch of high blood in him at bottom, but I'd have sworn he had been some time or other in the place of a gentleman, afloat or ashore, though plainly now 'going to the devil.'
"Meanwhile the breaking look of the clouds away on our larboard bow showed it wasn't far off dawn; so, sending another hand to the wheel, and finding a snug spot under a stern-grating for a snooze on deck, I told Jones to begin with taking charge of the deck for me. 'One thing, sir,' said he, touching his hat again, as I lay down, 'I've only shipped for the outward voyage, and leave at the first port.' 'Why, what!' said I, lifting my head; 'what do you mean to do there, eh?' 'I—I want to go ashore,' answered he, eagerly; 'ay, if we're years on the cruise, so much the better, sir, but so soon as she drops anchor off Calcutta, I'm my own master?' 'Have your own way, then,' said I; 'at any rate I'll try you in the meantime—so Mister Jones, let's see how you mind the schooner till eight bells!' Whereupon I turned myself over to sleep, and it was as broad daylight as we had any likelihood of about the Cape, when I woke.
CHAPTER XXIV
"It still blew a stiff breeze, but the waves rose with a length and a breadth in them you find in no other sea; deep-blue sparkling hills of water, with green gleams about the crests, of which every single wave had a hundred or so; and a long seething, simmering, glassy hollow of a still valley between, where the flecks of foam slid away glittering out of the shadow. But, oh! it was glorious to feel the schooner rising quietly in the trough, with the mount of a wave, to the very ridge of it; then with a creak of all her timbers and bulkheads below, a slight shake to windward, and a jerk at her bows, lean over to leeward again, and go hissing through the breast of a huge sea, till you thought she'd go down into it; while there she was, however, lifting head up, with a swift flash of her cutwater, on the cross half-wave that joined every first and third one—'billow' and 'sea,' as you may say. The breeze having drawn more easterly toward morning, Jones had braced her more upon a wind, with reefed main and foresails, and fore-staysail set, which brought out the Aniceta's weatherly qualities to a marvel, as, notwithstanding almost a head-wind and a swelling sea, she went nearly as fast as the frigate would have done before the breeze, and not a sign of the land was to be seen from her cross-trees.