“Oh! come in, Mr Chester, and bwing yourself to an anchor. Atkins! a wine-glass for Mr Chester. There, help yourself, young gentleman.”
I poured out a glass of the port, wondering, as I sipped it, wherever the skipper managed to pick up so very excellent a wine; and when the steward had retired, closing the door after him, Captain Hood looked across the table at me, and said,—
“Mr Chester, I have been gweatly gwatified at the continued good weports which Mr Annesley makes of your conduct. He speaks vewy highly of your intelligence, persevewance, zeal, and couwage, and I—ah—may say that—er—I have myself noted fwom time to time your possession of those—ah—desiwable chawactewistics. Partly on this account, and partly because of your—ah—intimate knowledge of the Fwench language, I have selected you for the performance of a service in which all the qualities I have mentioned are—er—conspicuously necessawy. You will understand this more clearly when I explain that the service consists in the safe conveyance of certain vewy important documents to the hands of a Corsican gentleman on shore yonder, in the face of unknown but possibly sewious difficulties from the numewous Fwench twoops occupying the island, and into whose hands the documents in question must by no means be allowed to fall. I should hesitate vewy stwongly about intwusting one so young with a mission so delicate but for Mr Annesley’s positive assuwance that I may safely do so. Now, what say you? are you willing to undertake the service?”
To say that I jumped at the offer would but feebly express the eagerness with which I answered in the affirmative. Here was one of those chances for distinguishing myself for which I had so ardently longed, and here too was the prospect of at least temporary freedom from the restraints of discipline and the monotony of shipboard, to say nothing of the possibilities of excitement and adventure involved in the performance of a secret service in the enemy’s country. It was with the utmost difficulty I controlled my excitement sufficiently to listen to the skipper’s instructions, and to absorb and master the information necessary to the successful conduct of the enterprise.
The map spread upon the table was a map of Corsica drawn to a large scale, and showing every road, stream, mountain-path, wood, chateau—indeed I might almost say every house on the island; and upon it was marked in red ink the various French posts, as far as they could be ascertained, while crosses in blue ink indicated the posts of the insurgent Corsicans. Captain Hood produced also a skeleton map of the island drawn to a very small scale, containing only such information as was necessary for my guidance; and during the delivery of his instructions frequent reference was made to both these maps, as well as to a manuscript book of what would be called “sailing directions” if it referred to a journey by water instead of by land, and from which I made brief notes from time to time, by way of memory-refreshers, in a tiny book with which Captain Hood furnished me. The skipper kept me with him for more than two hours—in fact until he had satisfied himself that I not only thoroughly understood what was required of me—which was very simple, being merely to find an individual, who was to be identified by certain pre-arranged tokens, and to deliver my despatches, or whatever they were, into his hands—but also that I had mastered every scrap of information which he was able to give me. When at length he found that I was fully “posted up,” he dismissed me to make my preparations, cautioning me to dress in plain clothes, and to exercise the utmost care that I carried no document or article of any description with me whereby I might be identified as belonging to the English service, “otherwise,” he grimly observed, “they will hang you without hesitation on the nearest tree. One thing more,” he continued, as I rose to leave the cabin; “as soon as you are landed, we shall proceed in search of Commodore Linzee’s squadron, which we are ordered to join; it is therefore quite uncertain when you may have an opportunity to return to the ship; but as I have reason to believe we shall operate somewhere at the northern end of the island, as soon as you have accomplished your mission you had better make for either Calvi or Bastia, and when you can learn our actual whereabouts, seize the first opportunity which offers to rejoin. Here,” handing me a packet, “is a sufficient amount of Fwench money to cawwy you handsomely thwough the business if no hitch occurs; if it does, you must exercise your ingenuity to get yourself out of the difficulty. Now go away and get weady, and—ah—er—I heartily wish you success. Good-bye.”
He offered me his hand—with just the slightest perceptible touch of stiffness in the gesture—which I seized and shook so heartily in the excitement of the moment as to cause him to raise his eyebrows in astonishment at my audacity. The next minute I was on deck once more, with the cool night-air fanning my flushed and burning cheeks, while it urged the frigate through the water at a rate of about seven knots toward the lights of Ajaccio, which glimmered on the horizon broad on our starboard bow.