This was soon accomplished, and the “fatted pig” slaughtered for the feast. As I never left home unprovided with gold, means were not wanting to stock our pantry with champagne as well as brandy.
Every thing went off to a charm. We fed like gluttons and drank like old-fashioned squires. Bumper after bumper was quaffed to the captain. Little by little, the infection spread, as it always does, from the wardroom to the cabin, and “goodfellowship” was the watchword of the night. Invitations were given and accepted by our prize crew. Bull and the Lion again relaxed under the spell of beef and brandy, so that by sundown every lip had tasted our eau de vie, and watered for more. The “first watch” found every soul on board, with the exception of our corporal of marines, as happy as lords.
This corporal was a regular “character;” and, from the first, had been feared as our stumbling-block. He was a perfect martinet; a prim, precise, black-stock’d, military, Miss Nancy. He neither ate nor drank, neither talked nor smiled, but paraded the deck with a grim air of iron severity, as if resolved to preserve his own “discipline” if he could not control that of any one else. I doubt very much whether her Majesty has in her service a more dutiful loyalist than Corporal Blunt, if that excellent functionary has not succumbed to African malaria.
I hoped that something would occur to melt the corporal’s heart during the evening, and had prepared a little vial in my pocket, which, at least, would have given him a stirless nap of twenty-four hours. But nothing broke the charm of his spell-bound sobriety. There he marched, to and fro, regular as a drum tap, hour after hour, stiff and inexorable as a ramrod!
But who, after the fall of Corporal Blunt, shall declare that there is a living man free from the lures of betrayal? And yet, he only surrendered to an enemy in disguise!
“God bless me, corporal,” said our prize lieutenant, “in the name of all that’s damnable, why don’t you let out a reef or two from those solemn cheeks of yours, and drink a bumper to Captain Gaspard and Don Téodor? You ain’t afraid of cider, are you?”
“Cider, captain?” said the corporal, advancing to the front and throwing up his hand with a military salute.
“Cider and be d——d to you!” returned the lieutenant. “Cider—of course, corporal; what other sort of pop can starving wretches like us drink in Sary-loney?”
“Well, lieutenant,” said the corporal, “if so be as how them fizzing bottles which yonder Spanish gentleman is a-pourin’ down is only cider; and if cider ain’t agin rules after ‘eight bells;’ and if you, lieutenant, orders me to handle my glass,—I don’t see what right I have to disobey the orders of my superior!”
“Oh! blast your sermon and provisos,” interjected the lieutenant, filling a tumbler and handing it to the corporal, who drained it at a draught. In a moment the empty glass was returned to the lieutenant, who, instead of receiving it from the subaltern, refilled the tumbler.