The lifeboat from the Martin, which was manned by four stout seamen, the commander himself coming in her as coxswain, meanwhile was making for us, the course of the cutter being directed by signals from the brig, where the signalman on duty had probably kept his glass on me from the moment I jumped overboard and rose to the surface; and, presently, after a long pull and a hard one too, the boat came up to the buoy and took us off.
‘By the Lord Harry!’ as father used to exclaim sometimes when he was excited, you should have only heard the cheer that greeted us when the cutter got back to the brig, which had now dropped her anchor; the boys and older hands also, who were just on their way down from aloft after furling the sails, manning the rigging, and giving out a wild and hearty ‘Hooray’ that might have been heard in the dockyard.
The commander complimented me on the quarter-deck, saying that my action was a plucky one to jump overboard as I did, whether to save man or dog; and then ordering the steward to fetch me a stiff glass of hot brandy-and-water, he told me to go below and turn in to my hammock.
‘Gyp,’ however, would not leave me; and, as he insisted on joining company with me in my hammock, I made him go shares with the brandy-and-water as well, though I can’t say that he took his portion with as much satisfaction.
His master, on coming to hear of the occurrence when he returned from leave, was, I need hardly say, delighted that ‘Gyp’ had been saved from a watery grave.
He extolled, indeed, my really unpremeditated action in much higher terms than it actually deserved; for, really, I did it, as I have said before, without thinking.
However, be that as it may, the captain, commending me on my good conduct generally since I had been attached to the training-ship under his command, passed over in the most honourable way that unfortunate smoking episode of mine, and promised to ‘keep his eye on me.’
This, I may add, he did in a much more satisfactory manner than that smart chap, ship’s corporal Smithers; but, of this, you will learn anon.
My days in the Saint Vincent, you must know, were now drawing to a close.
Nine months of second-class boy instruction and four months as a first-class boy had pretty well taken me through the ordinary routine of the training-ship; the last two months of my stay on board being mainly devoted to a résumé of the various studies constituting seamanship which I had already gone through, as well as a grand rehearsal of gun practice and rifle drill and of the sword exercise.