“Nothing, sir,” I replied, “except that I felt you were about—under the influence of a grave misapprehension—to inflict punishment upon men who had not deserved it; and that if you did so you would certainly regret the act most deeply. It was from no motive of disrespect that I acted as I did, I assure you, sir; it was done on the impulse of the moment, and because I felt that if the evil was to be prevented it must be done instantly. I acted as I should have wished another to act had I been in your place, sir.”
This I felt was but a lame explanation, and not likely to help me to any great extent out of my difficulty; but there was really nothing else I could say without directly charging the skipper with wanton tyranny, which it was certainly not the place of a reefer on his first cruise to do; if Mr Reid and the rest of the officers were content with the position of affairs it was not for me to gainsay them.
“Very well, young gentleman,” answered the skipper, after a somewhat lengthy pause, “I am willing to accept your explanation, and to believe that you acted upon a good motive the more readily that Mr Reid here has been most eloquent pleading your cause, and giving you the best of characters. But, hark ye, Mr Lascelles, never, for the future, presume to form any opinion—good or bad—upon your captain’s conduct; nor, under any circumstances, attempt to put him right. You are too young and too inexperienced to be capable of forming a just judgment of the actions of your superiors; moreover, a midshipman’s duty is to obey, not to judge or advise his superior officers. You may return to your duty, sir; and let the unpleasant incident of to-day be a warning to you throughout the remainder of your career.”
Highly delighted, and, I must confess, equally surprised in so easy an escape from what threatened at the outset to be an exceedingly awkward scrape, I stammered out a few confused words of thanks and assurances of good behaviour for the future, bowed, and executed a somewhat hasty retreat.
Chapter Five.
A “Cutting-Out” Expedition.
On going on deck to stand my watch that night shortly after my dismissal by Captain Pigot, found the squadron heading to the northward on an easy bowline, under reefed topsails, with the island of Tortuga bearing south-east, about ten miles distant. We continued on the starboard tack during the whole of that night, tacking at eight o’clock on the following morning, and heading in toward the land once more, at the same time shaking the reefs out of our topsails. An hour later the lookout aloft reported a sail to leeward; and, on signalling the fact to the admiral, the Hermione received permission to chase.
We managed to approach within ten miles of the stranger without exciting his suspicions; but shortly afterwards a doubt appeared to enter his mind as to the honesty of our intentions, and he tacked, no doubt with the object of ascertaining whether our business had anything to do with him or not. He soon found that it had; for before he was fairly round our course had been altered so as to intercept him. This sufficed to thoroughly alarm him, and, wearing short round, he went square off before the wind, setting every stitch of canvas his little vessel—a schooner of some seventy tons—could spread to the breeze. The chase now showed herself to be a very smart little craft, staggering along under her cloud of canvas in a really surprising manner; indeed, had the pursuit lasted an hour longer we should probably have lost her, for she was within five miles of the harbour of Jean Rabel when we succeeded in bringing her to.