The flag of the Royal Naval Reserve was now run up in a round ball to the gaff, where it was shaken loose, and then "the blessed bit o' bunting," as Joe Grummet admiringly and affectionately called it, floated gallantly on the breeze.
By noon Captain Talbot gave the order to shorten sail; the courses were hauled up; the warm breeze swept through the open rigging; the anchor was let go—the cable swept with a roar through the hawse-hole, and the ship rode at her moorings, in eight fathoms water, while the hands and apprentices went aloft to furl everything fore and aft.
Around was now the noble bay of Rio, studded by fully eighty islets, with the city and all its shipping in the foreground; and the high range of beautiful mountains, clothed with wood to their summits, called the Corcovado, that bound its western plain, in the background. Along the beach lies the main street, called the Rua Dirieta, from which all the others branch off and form a city of palaces, for such it is; and high over all its edifices, conspicuous on a hill that juts into the sea between it and the Praya de Flamingo, towers Nossa Senhora da Gloria, the greatest of the sixty churches in Rio, where eternal spring and summer reign together.
But we do not mean to "do Guide Book," and dwell on the beauties and wonders of Rio de Janeiro; neither do we mean to linger on the debût of Derval or his probationary life as a sailor, for we have much to relate of his future career. Suffice it now, that "bulk" was soon broken on board the Amethyst; the cargo started and sent ashore, to be replaced by another for Van Dieman's Land, and by the labour of slaves, who in Rio are made veritable beasts of burden, and are to be seen with iron collars about their necks, and often with masks of tin, that conceal the lower portion of their faces and are secured behind by a common padlock; and the last day of March saw the Amethyst standing out of the bay, with a land breeze, under a press of sail, once more to plough the world of waters.
Ere the vessel sailed Derval felt, but for the last time, the colt of Mr. Paul Bitts, who called him "the lazy scum of a fish-pond," and who delighted in malignant cruelty and the torture of his own species, and highly resented the circumstance of the lad being a little absorbed in a letter from home, brought by the mail steamer. His father had heard of his safety, through the owners, Curry & Co., and no doubt the fright he had received caused him to reproach himself, for a time—but a time only—with his coldness and neglect of his firstborn, and lack of that affection which latterly he had denied him and bestowed entirely on the other son; and poor Derval's honest heart grew very, very full indeed, as he read and re-read the lines his father's hand had traced, and which he valued more than the twenty-pound note he enclosed to him, and which could not be of much use while on the waters of the Southern Sea.
Fortunately he had been well grounded in Euclid and algebra, by the kind tutelage of Mr. Asperges Laud, to whom his thoughts ever went home gratefully; and in the knowledge of his profession he made rapid progress under Joe Grummet, a tutor of a very different kind; while his mind, as active as his body, required and delighted in scientific research. He became a prime favourite with the seamen, knew and understood their characters, and was all the more in favour that he quickly knew the whole parts of the ship from stem to stern, and could act by turns cooper and carpenter, sailmaker and ropemaker, so clever was his head and so skilful was he with his hands.
CHAPTER V.
AFTER LONG YEARS.
Four years have elapsed since we last saw Derval, and since then the Amethyst had been freighted to so many parts of the world, that he had seen a vast deal of it and won much skill and experience, but had never once been near his home.
Great were the changes which time and circumstances had effected there.