I murmured something—I hardly knew what—by way of thanks, to which the admiral kindly replied,—
“There, there; don’t say a word about it, my dear boy. Annesley has told me all about you, and if the half of what he says be true, I know of no one who is better fitted for the trust than yourself. Besides, I have really nobody else to place in charge. If you feel well enough, you had better run down on board in the course of a day or two, and see how matters are going on. Now come away into the other room and have some lunch.”
On the following morning, directly after breakfast, I started in Mr Finnie’s ketureen for Kingston, and, reaching the wharf about noon, chartered that fast-sailing clipper, the “Fly-by-night,” to convey me to Port Royal. The jabber of the black boatmen and the exhilarating sensation of being once more afloat had quite a tonic effect upon my spirits, which rose higher and higher as we tore down past the Palisades, the boat careening gunwale-to, with the hissing, sparkling foam seething past and trailing away in a long wake astern.
When I got on board the “Juanita,” I found that they had just stepped the foremast, and a most beautiful spar it was, without a knot in it, and as straight as a ray of light.
Fisher, the dockyard foreman, was on board, superintending operations, and from him I learned that it was intended to make some slight alterations in the armament of the craft; for, whereas when captured she carried four long-sixes of a side, it was now proposed to alter the position of the ports, reducing their number to three, and bringing them more toward the middle or waist of the vessel, and mounting three long-nines on each side instead of the four sixes, thus removing the weight from the two ends, and adding three pounds to the weight of her broadside. It was also proposed to take away the long-nine from forward, and to substitute for it a long-eighteen between the masts.
These alterations accorded strictly with my own views upon the subject, and were precisely what I should have suggested, had I been asked. There had been some little talk about increasing the height of her bulwarks, but this, I was glad to hear, had been overruled; for it would certainly have gone far toward spoiling her light, jaunty, graceful appearance.
It took the dockyard people just another week to complete the proposed alterations, during which I visited the craft every morning, returning to my quarters at Mr Finnie’s in time for their six o’clock dinner. On the day week after my first visit she was out of Fisher’s hands, and as I left her late that afternoon I thought I had never seen a prettier little craft. Her tall, slim, taper spars had a jaunty little rake aft, and were encumbered with only so much rigging as was absolutely necessary to prevent them from going over the side. Her yards, though light, were of immense spread, and the new suit of sails with which she had been fitted fore and aft, and which had been stretching all the week and were permanently bent only that same morning, gleamed in the brilliant sunshine, white as snow.
Her hull was coppered to about six inches beyond the water-line, and above this she was painted a cool grey up to her rail, this colour being relieved by a narrow scarlet riband along the covering-board. It was a fancy of the admiral, that she should be made as unlike a ship of war as possible, in order that she might be the more thoroughly fitted for her destined work; and, between us all, we certainly managed to meet his wishes in that respect to perfection, for she looked, both in hull and rigging, more like a yacht than anything else.
On the following day the stores and ammunition were shipped, and on the day after I called at the admiral’s office for my instructions, joined the ship, and that same evening, as soon as the land breeze set in, proceeded to sea; my orders being to cruise among the Windward Passages for the protection of trade and the suppression of piracy until recalled, and to look in at the post office on Crooked Island about once a month for orders.
Keeping close along in under the land, so as to take full advantage of the land breeze, we were off Morant Point by midnight, when we stretched away to seaward, and finally, after being obliged to take to our sweeps to get across the calm belt between the terral and the trade-wind, stood away to the northward, close-hauled upon the starboard tack, toward the Cuban shore.