“Worm and parcel with the lay,
And serve the rope the other way!”
With my mathematical studies, too, I made equal progress, in spite of my original dislike to friend Euclid and his vexatious propositions.
I also learnt how to find my latitude, by “bringing down the sun” with the sextant; and was taught the bearings and deviation of the compass, as well as the mastery of the log-line and other similar little niceties of navigation.
These preliminaries achieved, I was reported by the naval instructor to the captain of the training-ship as “efficient” long before my probationary period of three months had expired.
The captain of the training-ship, in due course, reported me to the Admiralty; and one fine morning I received official notice from the Secretary informing me that I was to go to sea, being appointed to the Candahar, line-of-battle ship, just commissioned for service on the China station; where, it was reported, matters were getting a little ticklish at the time, our government being at loggerheads with that of the emperor of the sun, moon and stars, and war imminent between the two countries.
It was certainly a splendid opening for me!
“By jingo! you’re a lucky johnny,” said little Tom Mills when I told him the news, my chum heaving a sigh of disappointment at this early severance of our friendship. He was, I could see, also a little jealous of my going to sea before him. “I’ll write to my father and see if he cannot get me appointed to the same ship!”
“I hope you will, Tom,” cried I, as I wrung his hand at the gangway, parting company at the same time with the rest of my old messmates, who had not yet passed through the course of the training-ship, all of whom gathered round to see the last of me. “I promise you, old chap, I sha’n’t have any other chum if you don’t come with me!”
With these words, I ran down the ladderway; and, the next moment, was seated with three other cadets, who were leaving like myself to go afloat, in the sternsheets of the second cutter.
This last had been detailed by the commander to take us off to the Candahar; then lying alongside the old Blake hulk and moored in the stream, about midway between the Sheer Jetty and the King’s Stairs, where she was “fitting out for sea” as speedily as possible, the authorities having urged the utmost haste in her preparation.