My descent to the midshipmen’s berth for the purpose of making my few preparations was the signal for a general fusillade of questions from my inquisitive messmates as to the why and wherefore of my summons to the cabin, and great was the disgust which each felt that he had been passed over in favour of so unimportant a personage as myself. It was quite true that no one of them could claim to possess more than the merest rudimentary knowledge of French, yet each was prepared with what he considered an amply sufficient reason why he should have been specially selected for the service.
Mr Midshipman Raleigh maintained that the duty was his by right, in virtue of his seniority; and as to his ignorance of French, that was a mere trifle which he was quite satisfied would never have proved the slightest impediment to his success.
Little Percy Neville—a blue-eyed, golden-haired lad whom not even a blind man could well have mistaken for anything else than pure Anglo-Saxon—flattered himself that “the cut of his jib” was so eminently French as to deceive even the most practised eye; while as to language, he could say bonjour or bon soir, and bow with the air of a born Parisian. These accomplishments were, he considered, amply sufficient to ensure his perfect safety while travelling, and to enable him triumphantly to accomplish his mission—if need were—in the full light of day, and under the very eyes of unsuspecting thousands.
Mr Robert Summers was of opinion that that was all very well, and might do; but if he had been entrusted with the duty, his first step would have been to proceed straight to Ajaccio, and there disburse some of the French coin in the acquisition of an organ and monkey, together with a full suit of picturesque Italian rags, all of which he knew would be easily procurable; and provided with these, he would have felt prepared to face with the most unruffled nonchalance the severest scrutiny of a whole regiment of French detectives—the acuteness of the mere soldiery he considered would have proved simply beneath his contempt.
Each of the other “young gentlemen” was equally ready to suggest an infallible scheme for baffling the vigilance of the enemy; and if the conversation had no other value, it at least served to amuse me while making my preparations for the expedition.
The money was mostly paper, and my first act was to carefully secrete it among the lining of the suit of “long togs” which I had decided to bend for my cruise ashore. I then packed a small leather bag with a shirt or two, selecting such as—I say it with shame—I had been too lazy to mark, a pair of socks, a brush and comb, a piece of soap—afterwards rejected upon the urgent representation of Bob Summers that the French never used soap, much less carried it about with them—and a few other necessaries of trifling bulk, together with a small sketch-book and a box of colours; my idea being that the best way to elude inconvenient attention was by neither courting nor avoiding it, and my intention was to endeavour to pass as a young German artist student on a sketching tour, a sufficient knowledge of German and drawing for such a purpose being among my accomplishments. Lastly, I summoned up courage to ask of Mr Annesley the loan of a pair of beautiful little pocket-pistols which I had frequently noticed when I had had occasion to go to his cabin.
This completed my equipment, and by the time that I was ready and once more on deck the frigate had approached to within some six miles of the land, and was in the act of heaving-to, it being considered that we were now as close in as it was prudent to go.
When I stepped on deck, Captain Hood was on the quarter-deck, talking to Mr Annesley and Mr Rawlings, the master—who was so far convalescent as to be able once more to resume the duties of his post—and as I approached the group, I heard the skipper remark, “And so you know Ajaccio well, Mr Rawlings?”
“Ay, ay, sir,” responded the master, “almost as well as I know Portsmouth Harbour; I have been in there twice, and can put the ship wherever you want her, within a fathom or so, dark as it is.”
“Is there not a ruin of some sort close to the water’s edge, about six miles to the southward of the town?”