What cared he––no wife or child to cheer him! No cares save but to see that the ensign did not roll foul of the halyards, that the broad pennant blew out straight, that the half-hour glass did not need turning, and that no boat approached the frigate without his reporting it to the officer of the watch. Naught else save, perhaps, whether the other old quarter-master, Charley Holmes, down below there on the gun-deck, had wiped from his lips the moisture of the midday grog, and would be up in time to take the relief while the pea soup was warm. Nothing else.
The lieutenant of the watch briskly paced the solid deck, scrubbed white as milk with lime-juice and molasses, the even seams between the planks glistening like the strands of a girl’s raven tresses as his profane and rapid feet pressed upon them. What thought he in his careless walk, with the gleaming bunch of bullion on his right 184 shoulder, sword by his side, white trowsers, and gilt eagle buttons on his navy-blue coat?
He was thinking how his pittance of pay would support, in a scrimpy way, his poor mother and sister, who looked unto him as their only hope and refuge. And he thought, too, as he tramped that noble deck, made glorious by many a battle and victory in which he had borne a humble part, that his rich and powerful country would eventually reward him with increased pay and promotion. Were the single dollar which lay alone in his trowsers pocket, and the light mist which arose off there beyond the Apostles’ Battery, opposite Port Royal Harbor, an evidence of one or a sign of the last aspiration? We hope not; but we shall see.[*]
Three or four midshipmen, too, pranced over that frigate’s white quarter-deck, on the port side, in their blue jackets and duck trowsers. Little gay madcaps they were, scarcely well into their teens, with little glittering toasting-forks of dirks dangling at their sides, and ready for any lark or mischief.
And what thought those boyish imps of reefers? Did they trace the flight of that tropic man-of-war bird, sailing high up in the heavens, heading seaward, away into the distant future, through clouds and sunshine, rain and storm? And did they think, as they fluttered along the deck, that their own career might lead them in that direction, toward the star of promotion which shone so brightly near at hand, and was never reached; or else, by a chance shot, to come tumbling down with a crippled pinion, and hobble out their lives on shore? No. Those gay young blades, whose mothers were dreaming and sighing for them, had no reflections of that kind. They were chattering about the little frolic they had on their last liberty day, when the captain ordered them off to the frigate at sunset, and planning another for the week to come. Happy little scamps, let them dance their careless thoughts away!
“Two bells, sir,” said the quarter-master to the officer of the watch.
“Very good! Young gentlemen, tell the boatswain to turn the hands to, and have the barge manned. Let the first lieutenant and the marine officer know that the commodore is going to leave the ship. There, no larking on the quarter-deck, Mr. Mouse!”
This last command was addressed to a tiny youngster who was hardly big enough to go without pantalettes, much less to wear a jacket and order half a hundred huge sailors about, any one of whom was old enough to be his great-grandfather. But yet that small lad did it, and could steer a boat, too, or fly about like a ribbon in a high wind up there in the mizzen-top, while the men on the yard were taking the last reef in the top-sail.
“Go down to the cabin, sir, and let the commodore and his friend know the boat is ready.”