"There goes the dear old beauty," said Davie; "there's a retiring curtsy for you that beats the stateliest of my lady patronesses at Almacks."
Having gained an offing of about three miles, she again shortened sail, and hove to in her station to await our joining, when the bar became passable in the night.
"Weary work, master Benjie,—weary work," said Davie Doublepipe; "so here we must lie, roasting another whole day, while there is plenty of water on the bar, if that confounded swell would only fall."
By this it was drawing near the men's dinner-time; and while the lieutenant and I were pacing the deck, rather disconsolately, trying to steer clear of the smoke of the galley, that streamed aft as we rode head to wind, we noticed that our sable visitor, Serjeant Quacco, had, with the true spirit of resignation, declined into cook's mate (indeed, if there be a Negro on board when this birth becomes vacant, he invariably slides into it, as naturally as a snail into his shell), and was busy in assisting the maimed seaman who was watching the coppers. The fire seemed to burn very indifferently from the greenness of the wood, which gave out more smoke than flame.
"Drainings, my man," said Lanyard to cookey, "don't choke us, if you please. Do get some dry chips from Shavings, will you?"
"Ay, ay, sir," said the man.
"Here, Quacco, mind the fire," continued Drainings, "till I get some splinters from forward there.—Stay—Lennox, my dear boy, do get me a handful of dry chips from old Shavings, will ye?"
The Scotch corporal civilly complied; and after a little, we saw him split up a block of wood where the carpenter had been at work in the bows of the felucca, and presently he returned with a bundle of them, which Serjeant Quacco busily employed himself in poking into the fire, blowing lustily with his blubber lips all the while. When Lennox turned away, I could not help noticing, that he stuck his tongue in his cheek, and winked to one of the crew as he went below.
Presently Lanyard desired the boatswain to pipe to dinner. In place of bundling down below, according to the etiquette of the service in larger vessels, he winked, I saw, at the poor fellows breaking away forward into messes, which they contrived to screen from the view of the quarterdeck, by slewing the long yard nearly athwart ships, and loosing the sail as if to dry.
Notwithstanding all this, we could easily see what was going on forward. Close to, sat the old cook himself, with Shavings the carpenter, and Wadding the gunner, warrant officers in a small way, with a little snipe of a boy waiting on them.