“This comes of dressing in nautical style, and assuming airs foreign to me,” I thought to myself, though I could not help fancying that there was some quiet irony in the old man’s tone. His plan did not at all suit my notions. I was already beginning to feel very uncomfortable, bobbing and tossing about among the ships; and I expected to be completely upset, unless I could speedily put my foot on something more stable than the cockleshell, or rather bean-pod, of a boat in which I sat. I began to be conscious, indeed, that I must be looking like anything but “a sea-faring gentleman.”
“But we must find her,” I exclaimed, with some little impetuosity; “it will never do to be going back, and I know she’s here.”
“So the old woman said as was looking for her needle in the bundle of hay,” observed old Bob, with provoking placidity. “On course she is, and we is looking for her: but it’s quite a different thing whether we finds her or not, ’specially when it gets dark; and if, as I suspects, it comes on to blow freshish there’ll be a pretty bobble of a sea here at the turn of the tide. To be sure, we may stand over to Ryde and haul the boat up there for the night. There’s a pretty decentish public on the beach, the Pilot’s Home, where you may get a bed, and Jerry and I always sleeps under the wherry. That’s the only other thing for you to do, sir, that I sees on.”
Though very unwilling to forego the comforts of my cabin and the society of Captain Hassall, I agreed to old Bob’s proposal, provided the Barbara was not soon to be found. We sailed about among the fleet for some time, hailing one ship after another, but mine could not be found. I began to suspect at last that old Bob did not wish to find her, but had his eye on another day’s work, and pay in proportion, as he might certainly consider that he had me in his power, and could demand what he chose. I was on the point of giving up the search, when, as we were near one of the large Indiamen I have mentioned, a vessel running past compelled us to go close alongside. An officer was standing on the accommodation-ladder, assisting up some passengers. He hailed one of the people in the boat, about some luggage. I knew the voice, and, looking more narrowly, I recognised, I thought, my old schoolfellow, Jack Newall. I called him by name. “Who’s that?” he exclaimed. “What, Braithwaite, my fine fellow, what brings you out here?”
When I told him, “It is ten chances to one that you pick her out to-night,” he answered. “But come aboard; I can find you a berth, and to-morrow morning you can continue your search. Depend on it your ship forms one of our convoy, so that she will not sail without you.”
I was too glad to accept Jack Newall’s offer. Old Bob looked rather disappointed at finding me snatched from his grasp, and volunteered to come back early in the morning, and take me on board the Barbara, promising in the meantime to find her out.
The sudden change from the little boat tumbling about in the dark to the Indiaman’s well-lighted cuddy, glittering with plate and glass, into which my friend introduced me—filled, moreover, as it was, with well-dressed ladies and gentlemen—was very startling. She was the well-known Cuffnells, a ship of twelve hundred tons, one of the finest of her class, and, curiously enough, was the very one which, two voyages before, had carried my brother Frederick out to India.
I had never before been on board an Indiaman. Everything about her seemed grand and ponderous, and gave me the idea of strength and stability. If she was to meet with any disaster, it would not be for want of being well found. The captain remembered my brother, and was very civil to me; and several other people knew my family, so that I spent a most pleasant evening on board, in the society of the nabobs and military officers, and the ladies who had husbands and those who had not, but fully expected to get them at the end of the voyage, and the young cadets and writers, and others who usually formed the complement of an Indiaman’s passengers in those days. Everything seemed done in princely style on board her. She had a crew of a hundred men, a captain, and four officers, mates, a surgeon, and purser; besides midshipmen, a boatswain, carpenter, and other petty officers. I was invited to come on board whenever there was an opportunity during the voyage.
“We are not cramped, you see,” observed Newall, casting his eye over the spacious decks, “so you will not crowd us; and if you cannot bring us news, we can exchange ideas.”
True to his word, old Bob came alongside the next morning, and told me that he had found out the Barbara, and would put me on board in good time for breakfast.