"We're steering to the eastward. Yes, and we'll see the inside of a prison where men rot, if tales are true. We're bound for England, lad."
Now the time went by, and even the count of days was lost. We sang songs, told stories, and played at draughts and other games that we could manage in our limited room. I wish I had here space to record all that passed. Some of the yarns spun would be worth the reading, and I learned a great deal about the condition of affairs between America and England, and that, as my friend Plummer said, "we had given the lion's tail a twist, and a good one."
One of the songs that was most popular was "Hull's Victory," and a rattling good sea song it was. I used to take the tenor, Sutton the bass, in a way that would make the beams shake, and were it not that we were on short allowance in the eating line we would have been quite comfortable. Every day two of us at a time were allowed to take the air, in charge of a marine. Sometimes it was Sutton and I who walked together, and sometimes it was Brown or Craig, the landsman, who was my companion. Poor Craig! His spirit appeared entirely broken. He had behaved bravely in the long-boat, but now his lack of heart was pitiful. He contributed little to our enjoyment, and the only person who ever gave him a kindly word, I really think, was myself. He spoke to me often of his home and of the sorrow it had given his mother to part with him. I can vouch for this, that if he ever got back there, he would stay; for all desire toward adventure and roaming was killed within him.
I have not mentioned the other seamen by name purposely, for, with the exception of Brown and Sutton, they were an ordinary set of good and bad who would have done well under competent leadership perhaps, but who displayed no individuality; but they were all loyal to their flag, and did not appear much cowed by their confinement. When I walked the deck with Sutton I enjoyed it most. He was an old man-of-war's man, and criticised the handling of the Acastra in rather a superior manner.
Some of the foremast hands amongst the Englishmen were rather kindly disposed toward us, and many bits of tobacco they gave out of sheer kindheartedness to our forlorn little hand, some of whom had suffered actually from being deprived of the stimulant.
It happened that Brown and I were walking the deck when the sound of "land, ho!" came down from the mast-head. During the last day or so we had sighted a number of sail, all English, but now this created some excitement. There must have been a mist on the water that had hidden the land as we approached it, for by the time our recreation was almost ended we could spy it from the deck as we passed the gangway—tall white cliffs showing above the horizon.
"That's Land's End," observed Brown, jumping up to look over the bulwarks, for of course we were not allowed to approach near a port. "Johnny Cutlass, my son, this voyage is over. In three hours we'll be in the English Channel, and then for a little sojourn on board the hulks, or maybe we'll be shipped direct to one of their land prisons, where we'll find plenty of company, if I don't miss my reckoning; but keep up courage—things might be worse."
We were the last to go on deck this day, but the news we brought down with us started a great lot of talking. All showed interest but Craig, who sat there in his usual position, with his forehead on his knees. But a great change in our life was destined for the morrow.