I came to a place where I got a view of the Warrior, and I saw the convict ship close alongside of her with some of her yards braced forward clear of the pole masts of the hulk. It was blowing very fresh and bitterly cold, and the yellow ripples ran in little showerings of spray. I walked to where the wherry was to be had, and with some trouble, after waiting and looking about me, found a waterman.
‘Put me aboard the Childe Harold,’ said I.
‘Do you belong to the ship?’ said he.
‘Yes.’
‘If you’ll stand a drink I’ll save you a couple o’ bob,’ he exclaimed; and I guessed by the way he looked at the water that he preferred to lounge in the warmth of a public-house to taking a fare.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Tell the sentries you belong to the ship, and they’ll let you go aboard through the hulk.’
‘No, I want to go aboard in my own way.’
‘Come along, then.’
I got into his boat and, after he had breathed upon his hands and beaten his breast hard, he fell to his oars. I looked eagerly at the ship as we approached. The consuming anxieties I had endured for weeks and months, compressed into ten minutes of sensation, would not have been harder to bear than what I now felt. The waterman pulled under the stern of the Childe Harold; a figure standing on the quarter was visible; I believed it was Will at first; he turned, and I saw he was not my cousin. A flight of gangway steps ran down the side of the ship, with a grating at bottom, close upon the water, to step on. The boat swung to, and the waterman waited for me to step out. I gave him two shillings, and kept my seat whilst I ran my eyes along the line of the bulwark rail.