“Oh, I’m sure I’m a thousand times obliged, lieutenant,” said Blunt, with his left hand to his cap, “a thousand, thousand times, lieutenant,—but I’d rather take no more, if it’s all the same to your honor.”
“But it ain’t, Blunt, by any means; the rule is universal among gentlemen on ship and ashore, that whenever a fellow’s glass is filled, he must drink it to the dregs, though he may leave a drop in the bottom to pour out on the table in honor of his sweetheart;—so, down with the cider! And now Blunt, my boy, that you’ve calked your first nail-head, I insist upon a bumper all round to that sweetheart you were just talking of!”
“Me, lieutenant?”
“You, corporal!”
“I wasn’t talking about any sweetheart, as I remembers, lieutenant;—’pon the honor of a soldier, I haven’t had no such a thing this twenty years, since one warm summer’s afternoon, when Jane——”
“Now, corporal, you don’t pretend to contradict your superior officer, I hope. You don’t intend to be the first man on this ship to show a mutinous example!”
“Oh! God bless me, lieutenant, the thought never entered my brain!”
But the third tumbler of champagne did, in the apple-blossom disguise of “cider;” and, in half an hour, there wasn’t an odder figure on deck than the poor corporal, whose vice-like stock steadied his neck, though there was nothing that could make him toe the plank which he pertinaciously insisted on promenading. Blunt the immaculate, was undeniably drunk!
In fact,—though I say it with all possible respect for her Majesty’s naval officers, while on duty,—there was, by this time, hardly a sober man on deck or in the cabin except myself and the Spanish captain, who left me to engage the prize-officer in a game of backgammon or dominoes. The crew was dozing about the decks, or nodding over the taffrail, while my colleague, the boatswain, prepared an oar on the forecastle to assist me in reaching the beach.
It was near midnight when I stripped in my state-room, leaving my garments in the berth, and hanging my watch over its pillow. In a small bundle I tied a flannel shirt and a pair of duck pantaloons, which I fastened behind my neck as I stood on the forecastle; and then, placing the oar beneath my arm, I glided from the bows into the quiet water.