Blue Lights: Hot Work in the Soudan Part 3

The seaman did not move from his semi-rec.u.mbent position as he uttered this alarming threat, but he accompanied it with a portentous frown and an owlish wink of both eyes.

"What! have _you_ joined the Blue Lights?" asked Sloper, with a smile, referring to the name by which the religious and temperance men of the army were known.

"No, I ha'n't. Better for me, p'r'aps, if I had. Here, waiter, fetch me another gin-an'-warer. An' more o' the gin than the warer, mind.

Heave ahead or I'll sink you!"

Having been supplied with a fresh dose of gin and water, the seaman appeared to go to sleep, and Miles, for want of anything better to do, accepted Sloper's invitation to play a game of dominoes.

"Are the beds here pretty good?" he asked, as they were about to begin.

"Yes, first-rate--for the money," answered Sloper.

"That's a lie!" growled the big sailor. "They're bad at any price-- stuffed wi' cocoa-nuts and marline-spikes."

Mr Sloper received this observation with the smiling urbanity of a man who eschews war at all costs.

"You don't drink," he said after a time, referring to Miles's pot of beer, which he had not yet touched.

Miles made no reply, but by way of answer took up the pot and put it to his lips.

He had not drunk much of it when the big seaman rose hurriedly and staggered between the two tables. In doing so, he accidentally knocked the pot out of the youth's hand, and sent the contents into Mr Sloper's face and down into his bosom, to the immense amus.e.m.e.nt of the company.

That man of peace accepted the baptism meekly, but Miles sprang up in sudden anger.

The seaman turned to him, however, with a benignantly apologetic smile.

"Hallo! messmate. I ax your parding. They don't leave room even for a scarecrow to go about in this here cabin. I'll stand you another gla.s.s.

Give us your flipper!"

There was no resisting this, it was said so heartily. Miles grasped the huge hand that was extended and shook it warmly.

"All right," he said, laughing. "I don't mind the beer, and there's plenty more where that came from, but I fear you have done some damage to my fr--"

"Your _friend_. Out with it, sir. Never be ashamed to acknowledge your friends," exclaimed the shabby man, as he wiped his face. "Hold on a bit," he added, rising; "I'll have to change my shirt. Won't keep you waitin' long."

"Another pot o' beer for this 'ere gen'lem'n," said the sailor to the barman as Sloper left the room.

Paying for the drink, he returned and put the pot on the table. Then, turning to Miles, he said in a low voice and with an intelligent look--

"Come outside for a bit, messmate. I wants to speak to 'ee."

Miles rose and followed the man in much surprise.

"You'll excuse me, sir," he said, when a few yards away from the door; "but I see that you're green, an' don't know what a rascally place you've got into. I've been fleeced there myself, and yet I'm fool enough to go back! Most o' the parties there--except the sailors an'

sodgers--are thieves an' blackguards. They've drugged your beer, I know; that's why I capsized it for you, and the feller that has got hold o' you is a well-known decoy-duck. I don't know how much of the ready you may have about you, but this I does know, whether it be much or little, you wouldn't have a rap of it in the mornin' if you stayed the night in this here house."

"Are you sure of this, friend?" asked Miles, eyeing his companion doubtfully.

"Ay, as sure as I am that my name's Jack Molloy."

"But you've been shamming drunk all this time. How am I to know that you are not shamming friendship now?"

"No, young man," returned the seaman with blinking solemnity. "I'm not shammin' drunk. I on'y wish I was, for I'm three sheets in the wind at this minute, an' I've a splittin' headache due i' the mornin'. The way as you've got to find out whether I'm fair an' above-board is to look me straight in the face an' don't wink. If that don't settle the question, p'r'aps it'll convince you w'en I tells you that I don't care a rap whether you go back to that there grog-shop or not. Only I'll clear my conscience--leastways, wot's left of it--by tellin' ye that if you do-- you--you'll wish as how you hadn't--supposin' they leave you the power to wish anything at all."

"Well, I believe you are a true man, Mister Molloy--"

"Don't Mister me, mate," interrupted the seaman.

"My name's Jack Molloy, at your service, an' that name don't require no handle--either Mister or Esquire--to prop it up."

The way in which the sailor squared his broad shoulders when he said this rendered it necessary to prop himself up. Seeing which, Miles afforded the needful aid by taking his arm in a friendly way.

"But come, let us go back," he said. "I must pay for my beer, you know."

"Your beer is paid for, young man," said Molloy, stopping and refusing to move. "_I_ paid for it, so you've on'y got to settle with _me_.

Besides, if you go back you're done for. And you've no call to go back to say farewell to your dear friend Sloper, for he'll on'y grieve over the loss of your tin. As to the unpurliteness o' the partin'--he won't break his heart over that. No--you'll come wi' me down to the _Sailors'

Welcome_ near the dock-gates, where you can get a good bed for sixpence a night, a heavy blow-out for tenpence, with a splendid readin'-room, full o' rockin' chairs, an' all the rest of it for nothin'. An there's a lavatory--that's the name that they give to a place for cleanin' of yourself up--a lavatory--where you can wash yourself, if you like, till your skin comes off! W'en I first putt up at the _Welcome_, the messmate as took me there said to me, says he, `Jack,' says he, `you was always fond o' water.' `Right you are,' says I. `Well,' says he, `there's a place in the _Sailors' Welcome_ where you can wash yourself all day, if you like, for nothing!'

"I do b'lieve it was that as indooced me to give in. I went an' saw this lavatory, an' I was so took up with it that I washed my hands in every bason in the place--one arter the other--an' used up ever so much soap, an'--would you believe it?--my hands wasn't clean after all! Yes, it's one the wery best things in Portsm'uth, is Miss Robinson's Welcome--"

"Miss Robinson again!" exclaimed Miles.

"Ay--wot have you got to find fault wi' Miss Robinson?" demanded the sailor sternly.

"No fault to find at all," replied Miles, suffering himself to be hurried away by his new friend; "but wherever I have gone since arriving in Portsmouth her name has cropped up!"

"In Portsmouth!" echoed the sailor. "Let me tell you, young man, that wherever you go all over the world, if there's a British soldier there, Miss Sarah Robinson's name will be sure to crop up. Why, don't you know that she's `The Soldiers' Friend'?"

"I'm afraid I must confess to ignorance on the point--yet, stay, now you couple her name with `The Soldier's Friend,' I have got a faint remembrance of having heard it before. Have I not heard of a Miss Weston, too, in connection with a work of some sort among sailors?"

"Ay, no doubt ye have. She has a grand Inst.i.toot in Portsm'uth too, but she goes in for sailors _only_--all over the kingdom--w'ereas Miss Robinson goes in for soldiers an' sailors both, though mainly for the soldiers. She set agoin' the _Sailors' Welcome_ before Miss Weston began in Portsm'uth, an' so she keeps it up, but there ain't no opposition or rivalry. Their aims is pretty much alike, an' so they keep stroke together wi' the oars. But I'll tell you more about that when you get inside. Here we are! There's the dock-gates, you see, and that's Queen Street, an' the _Welcome's_ close at hand. It's a teetotal house, you know. All Miss Robinson's Inst.i.toots is that."

"Indeed! How comes it, then, that a man--excuse me--`three sheets in the wind,' can gain admittance?"

"Oh! as to that, any sailor or soldier may get admittance, even if he's as drunk as a fiddler, if he on'y behaves his-self. But they won't supply drink on the premises, or allow it to be brought in--'cept inside o' you, of coorse. Cause why? you can't help that--leastwise not without the help of a stomach-pump. Plenty o' men who ain't abstainers go to sleep every night at the _Welcome_, 'cause they find the beds and other things so comfortable. In fact, some hard topers have been indooced to take the pledge in consekince o' what they've heard an' seen in this _Welcome_, though they came at first only for the readin'-room an' beds. Here, let me look at you under this here lamp. Yes. You'll do. You're something like a sea-dog already. You won't object to change hats wi' me?"

"Why?" asked Miles, somewhat amused.

"Never you mind that, mate. You just putt yourself under my orders if you'd sail comfortably before the wind. I'll arrange matters, an' you can square up in the morning."

As Miles saw no particular reason for objecting to this fancy of his eccentric friend, he exchanged his soft cap for the sailor's straw hat, and they entered the _Welcome_ together.

CHAPTER THREE.

THE "SAILORS' WELCOME"--MILES HAS A NIGHT OF IT AND ENLISTS--HIS FRIEND ARMSTRONG HAS AN AGREEABLE SURPRISE AT THE SOLDIERS' INSt.i.tUTE.

It was not long before our hero discovered the reason of Jack Molloy's solicitude about his appearance. It was that he, Miles, should pa.s.s for a sailor, and thus be in a position to claim the hospitality of the _Sailors' Welcome_,--to the inner life of which, civilians were not admitted, though they were privileged, with the public in general, to the use of the outer refreshment-room.