Deeming the exigency cogent, I fetched Mr Staff-surgeon Pledget. Pledget, after due examination, pronounced it a serious case, prescribed a restorative, departed to compound, and soon came back with it—only about half a pint. With some difficulty, poor Capsicum was got up in his berth, and the restorative was got down. Anticipating recalcitration, Pledget had come provided with a small horn. Having swallowed the dose, Capsicum found his voice. "Ah me!" he feebly whined, with a look of inexpressible horror and disgust, and his hand pressed upon the pit of his stomach; "ah me! is it an aperient?" Then, in a low and indignant growl, "Never took physic before, in all my life." He lay back on his bolster, with closed eyes, in feeble and sulky silence. Pledget withdrew, and I remained.
Presently, reopening his eyes, he cautiously looked around. "Is that fellow gone?" he whispered. I nodded. "Look in the cabin," he whispered again.
"Gone on deck," said I; "not quite right yet, himself. Do you want him? Shall I call him back?"
"No, no; nonsense! I say, you mix me a glass of that—you know what—the same you took yourself t'other night."
I hesitated. There was no doubt in the world it would do him a deal of good. But then he was under treatment; he was medically ill. What was I to do?
He looked at me appealingly, coaxingly, touchingly. "I'd do as much for you," said he.
There was no standing that. I clancularly gave my orders to the steward. The steward grinned, and brought the materials. In due time the mixture was made; and, in a very short time after, the patient had stowed it away. "I shall get up," said he. "Just help me out." I sent the steward to request the aid of Joey.
By unshipping the board at the side, we got Capsicum out of his crib, far more easily than we had got him in. But, alas, his legs doubled under him; he was helpless as an infant, and almost fainted away. At length we managed to dress him; and seated him in full fig at the cabin table, with his enormous snuff-box open before him. At dinner, that day, he managed the wing of a chicken and a slice of tongue. Couldn't a currant dumpling, though—was set against it by the wine sauce. Pledget had the credit of the cure.
I omit to relate, in extenso, how we were chased by what we took for an American sloop of war, but what proved to be an English frigate; how the arm-chest was got upon deck when we expected to be brought to action; and how the muskets were found, like poor Capsicum, stuck—rusted together into a mass, for want of looking after; how badly the said frigate threw her shot, sending the first, which ought to have gone ahead of us, slap through our topsail, and the second, which should have been a more direct communication, half a quarter of a mile wide; how the Major and Captain Gabion saw the said shot as they were coming, while I saw nothing but the splash in the water; how our leisure hours were solaced by two combative drakes, shut up together in the same coop, which fought incessantly, day and night, from the beginning to the end of the voyage—if you held a lantern to them in the dark, they were still fighting; how, when one hen laid an egg, the others pecked at it, and gobbled it up; how the skipper was rude to everybody on board—to the Major, it appeared, grossly so. These particulars, with many others, I defer to my quarto edition.
Yet let me not omit the skipper's confidence to Joey; how he thought passengers should be victualled on board ship. "Fust, good flabby pea-soup, as thick as batter—plenty on it—let 'em blow out their jeckits with that. When it's took away, why, then perpose a glass of bottled porter all round. Fust dinner aboard; won't it make some on 'em bolt?"