So saying, the skipper dived down the poop ladder, we two after him, when we found a well-spread table below, the sight of which pleased Sam as much as the appearance of my bunk—although, mind you, only on account of his interest in me, as there wasn’t a bit of the gourmand about him.
“See, my laddie,” said he, nudging me, and speaking in a whisper. “The cap’en ain’t a going to starve you!”
When we got on deck again, after a hearty meal, the sun had set and the evening was closing in; but, it was bright and clear overhead and the twinkling Nash lights, two white and one red, by Saint Donat’s Castle, were well away to windward on the starboard hand.
Although there was no necessity whatever for my keeping up, I was too much excited to turn in, even for the purpose of seeing how snug my new quarters were; so, Sam keeping me company, in order to have as much of me as he could—for the time was now approaching for our parting—he and I paced the poop all night, talking of all sorts of things, and planning out a wonderful future when I should be captain of a ship of my own.
Early in the morning watch, the wind lulled down to a gentle breeze, as it frequently does in summer before sunrise. This checked the ship’s rate of speed through the water considerably, so staying our progress that, instead of our arriving off Ilfracombe close on to daylight, as Captain Billings had sanguinely reckoned, it was long past eight bells and the hour of breakfast, to which we were both again invited into the cabin, before we neared the headland marking the bay sufficiently for us to heave to and signal for the pilot’s boat to come off and fetch him.
We were not long detained, however.
Hardly had the Esmeralda’s main-topsail been backed, ere a smart little cutter came sailing out towards us, with the familiar “P” and her number displayed on her spanker; so Sam hastened to bid his last farewell to me, making ready to accompany the pilot ashore.
“Good-bye, my cockbird,” said he, wringing my hand with a grip that made it wince again, a tremble the while in his voice and something suspiciously like a tear in his eye. “Keep honest, and do your duty, and never forget your father, laddie, nor old Sam Pengelly, who’ll be right glad to see you again when you return from this v’yage!”
“Good-bye, and God reward you, Sam, for all your kindness to me,” I returned, almost breaking down, and having to exercise all my self-command in order not to make an exhibition of myself before my new shipmates. “I’ll be certain to come and see you and Jane the moment I touch English ground again.”
“All right, my hearty, fare thee well,” said he, stepping into the boat of the pilot after that worthy, while the Esmeralda’s sails were let fill again on the vessel resuming her course down the Bristol Channel; but, as I bent over the taffrail, and waved my hand to Sam for the last time, I could hear his parting hail in the distance, sounding as loud almost as if he were alongside.