The frigate lay at Spithead. She had been waiting for these hands to put to sea. Lighters were alongside, and whips were never-ceasingly hoisting in casks of rum, with bales and cases of all sorts, which it seemed impossible could ever be stowed away. From the first lieutenant to the youngest midshipman, all were bawling at the top of their voices, issuing and repeating orders; but there were two persons who out-roared all the rest, the boatswain and the boatswain’s mate. They were proud of those voices of theirs. Let the hardest gale be blowing, with the wind howling and whistling through the rigging, the canvas flapping like claps of thunder, and the seas roaring and dashing against the bows, they could make themselves heard above the loudest sounds of the storm.
At present the boatswain bawled, or rather roared, because he was so accustomed to roar that he could speak in no gentler voice while carrying on duty on deck; and the boatswain’s mate imitated him.
The first lieutenant had a good voice of his own, though it was not so rough as that of his inferiors. He made it come out with a quick, sharp sound, which could be heard from the poop to the forecastle, even with the wind ahead.
Jack, Tom, and Bill looked at each other, wondering what was next going to happen. They were all three of about the same age, and much of a height, and somehow, as I have said, they found themselves standing close together.
They were too much astonished, not to say frightened, to talk just then, though they all three had tongues in their heads, so they listened to the conversation going on around them.
“Why, mate, where do you come from?” asked a long-shore chap of one of the whitey-brown-faced gentlemen.
“Oh, I’ve jist dropped from the clouds; don’t know where else I’ve come from,” was the answer.
“I suppose you got your hair cropped off as you came down?” was the next query.
“Yes! it was the wind did it as I came scuttling down,” answered the other, who was evidently never at a loss what to say. “And now, mate, just tell me how did you get on board this craft?” he inquired.
“I swam off, of course, seized with a fit of patriotism, and determined to fight for the honour and glory of old England,” was the answer.