In Greek Waters Part 14

"You will be spoken to pretty sharply if you say 'sir' down below. On deck, as we agreed, we would have things in man-of-war fashion; but we are not going to have anything of that sort when we are below together."

The dinner was an excellent one, and though the expectations of Miller and Tarleton had been raised by Martyn's encomiums of the Greek's cooking they were far surpa.s.sed by the reality. "It is a dinner fit for a king," Martyn said when the cloth was cleared away and a decanter of port placed on the table.

"There is one misfortune in it. If this sort of thing is going to last we shall never be fit for service in an ordinary craft again, we shall become Sybarites. Is this the sort of dinner you always have at home, Horace?"

"About the same, I think," Horace laughed. "My father takes no exercise and has not much appet.i.te, and I think he likes nice things; and it is one of the Greek's great aims in life to tempt him to eat.

We always have a very good cook, but Zaimes insists on having a few little things of his own cooking on the table, and as he is generally at war with the cook, and they leave in consequence about every three or four months, he often has the dinner altogether in his hands till a fresh one arrives, and I am amused sometimes to see how Zaimes fidgets when my father, which is often the case, is so occupied with his own thoughts that he eats mechanically and does not notice what is before him. Zaimes stands it for a minute or two and then asks some question or makes some observation that calls my father's attention back to what he is doing. They have both been with him for two-and-twenty years and are devoted to him. They are hardly like English servants, and talk to him in a way English servants would not think of doing.

They are always perfectly respectful, you know, but they regard themselves, as he regards them, as friends as well as servants."

"Well, gentlemen, we will drink the usual toast, 'The King, G.o.d bless him;' that is duty. Now fill up again, here is 'Success to the _Creole_.'" When the toast was drank Martyn went on:

"How did your father pick them up, Horace?"

"It was just after he went out to Greece, which was directly after he left college. He was at Samos, and got leave from the Turkish governor to visit the prison. In one of the cells were Zaimes and Marco, who was then a boy about sixteen. They were condemned to death; they had been smuggling, and a Turkish boat had overhauled them. They had resisted. Four of the men with them had been killed in the fight, and several of the Turks. These two had been both severely wounded and made prisoners. My father was new to that sort of thing then. After he had been a year or two in Greece he knew that it would take a king's fortune to buy out all the prisoners in the Turkish jails, but being only out there a month or two he was touched at the sight of the two prisoners. They were both very handsome, though, of course, pale and pulled down by their wounds and imprisonment, and Zaimes, who was the spokesman, had that courteous gentle manner that my father says all the Greeks have when they are not excited."

"At any rate he was very much interested and went off to the governor again, and the Turk was glad enough for a bribe of a hundred pounds to give him an order for the release of the two prisoners, on condition that they were to be let out after dark and at once put on board a craft that was sailing at daybreak next morning. My father went with them, and after that they absolutely refused to leave him, and travelled with him in Greece for some time and fought very pluckily when some Klepts once tried to carry him away into the mountains. Then he bought a small craft and established his head-quarters at Mitylene, and for a year lived there and cruised about the islands. When he came home he offered the felucca to them, but they refused to take it, and begged so hard for him to take them home with him that he agreed to do so, and they have proved invaluable to him ever since."

"Your father is lucky in having got hold of two such men," Martyn said. "I believe the lower order of Greeks are fine fellows in their way. They are quarrelsome and pa.s.sionate, no doubt, and apt to whip out their knives at the smallest provocation, and there is no trade they take so kindly to as that of a bandit; otherwise I believe they are honest hardworking fellows. But as for the upper cla.s.s of Greeks, the less I have to do with them the better. When they get a chance they grind down their countrymen a deal worse than the Turks do. They are slippery customers and no mistake. I would rather take a Turk's simple word than a solemn oath from a Greek."

"No; veracity is hardly one of their conspicuous virtues," the doctor put in quietly. "I take it that the ancients were so accustomed to swear by their G.o.ds, even after they had ceased to believe in them, that they came to consider that an oath by them was not binding, and so got into the way of lying generally, and their descendants have never amended their ways in that particular since. On more than one occasion, when there was trouble between our sailors and the Greeks, I attended their courts, and for good downright hard swearing I never heard them approached. I don't wonder that the Turks refuse to allow Christians to give evidence in their courts. We shall see when we get out, but I have grave doubts whether there has been any revolution at all, and whether it is not a got-up thing altogether, just to see what the rest of the world says to it."

The others laughed.

"There is one thing, doctor," Miller said; "we have heard from Europeans who are out there of what has been done, it does not come from the Greeks only."

"That is a confirmation, certainly, but it is well known that travellers' tales must always be received with caution. It has been so since the days of Herodotus. When a man gets away from his own country he is apt to get a certain looseness of the tongue. We will wait until we get out there before we form any strong opinion about it."

By this time they had finished their coffee, and Martyn, rising, said: "Mr. Tarleton, I shall be glad if you will go along the main-deck and see that the men are making themselves comfortable; to-morrow we will divide them into watches and tell them off to their stations and get things into working order."

Accordingly, in the morning the crew were divided into two watches, and the boat's crews told off, and then the work of getting the powder and small ammunition on board began; the latter did not take long, as it was already in a flat into which it had been discharged three days before from the coaster that had brought it from Liverpool. The flat had therefore only to be towed alongside and the cases swung on board and lowered into a portion of the hold that had been divided off from the rest by thick bulkheads to form a magazine. The ammunition and powder were all on board and stowed away, the ship was washed down, and the men piped to dinner by eight bells. The officers went down and divided the men into messes, examined the food, and saw that everything was comfortable.

"More room here than there was on board the _Surf_, d.i.c.k," Horace said as he stopped a moment on his rounds to speak to the young sailor.

"Yes, sir, one can stand upright here. But the _Surf_ was a good boat too."

After dinner the men were told off to their various duties and divided into crews for the guns, when these should be in place. The first lieutenant (for it was agreed that they should be called lieutenants and not mates) and Horace took the starboard watch, Tarleton and the boatswain the port watch. The men were formed up, inspected, and put through cutla.s.s drill for an hour, after which the watches by turns were exercised in setting sail, reefing, lowering, and furling, so that each man should know his place and duty. Then they were dismissed.

"They will be a first-rate crew when they have worked together for a few days," Martyn said. "I could not wish for a smarter set of men. If we meet anything about our own size I shall have no fear of giving a good account of her. I have no opinion whatever of the Turks as sailors; they are good soldiers, and have always proved themselves so, but more lubberly sailors never went to sea."

"Well, we are not likely to meet anything else," Horace said.

"I don't know, lad. The Greeks at the best of times are pirates at heart, and just at present they are not at all likely to be particular who they lay hands on. I saw in the paper only yesterday, they had attacked and plundered an Austrian craft, and it is probable that they may have done the same to a dozen others, only as a rule they scuttle any ship they may seize and nothing is ever known about her. Ships can't be too careful when they are in Greek waters, and a vessel wrecked on any of the islands is looked upon as a lawful prize. There is no fear of our being taken by surprise by the Turks, but I shall take precious good care that we are never caught napping when we are anch.o.r.ed anywhere in the Greek Archipelago. After dinner, Horace, I will go ash.o.r.e with you in the gig. I don't think it likely your father will be down by the night coach, as he would only get your letter this morning, but he may come; at any rate you have got to wait now at the Falcon till he turns up."

CHAPTER VI

UNDER WEIGH

After seeing to a few matters that had been left till the last moment, Will Martyn returned on board again. Horace dined at the club, of which he had been made an honorary member, and then went back to the Falcon. To his surprise Zaimes was standing at the door.

"Why, Zaimes, how on earth did you get here? Why, the coach does not get in till twelve o'clock."

"No, Mr. Horace, but we had everything ready to start this morning. Of course your letter did not come in time for us to get over to the early coach, but we were expecting it after what you wrote yesterday, and your father had concluded that it would be much more comfortable to post. He does not like being crowded, and it was doubtful whether there would be room for the two of us; and there was the luggage, so we had arranged for a post-chaise to come for us anyhow, and we started half an hour after your letter came in, and have posted comfortably. Your father is in the coffee-room. He would not have a private room, as he did not know whether you would be taking him on board this evening."

Mr. Beveridge was sitting at a table by himself, and had just finished his dinner when Horace came in. He looked up more briskly than usual.

"I am sorry I was not here to meet you, father," Horace said; "but I did not think you could be here until the night coach."

"No; I did not expect to find you here, Horace, so it was no disappointment. Well, you look bronzed and well, my boy, you and your friends seem to have done wonders in getting everything done so soon.

I am quite anxious to see the ship. Are we to go on board this evening?"

"If you don't mind, father, I would much rather you didn't go off till morning. I said that if you came we would breakfast early and be ready for the gig at half-past eight. They won't be expecting us to-night, and I am sure Martyn and the others will like to have everything in the best possible order when you go on board. We have been expecting those boxes of books you wrote about a week ago, but they haven't turned up. It will be a horrible nuisance if, after the way we have been pushing everything forward, we should be kept waiting two or three days for them."

"Well, Horace, the fact is I changed my mind. The four boxes were packed and in the hall. They really were very large boxes, and Zaimes said: 'Well, master, what you are going to do with all those books I can't imagine. Where are you going to put them? Why, they would fill your cabin up solid. If I were you, sir, I would not take one of them.

Just give yourself a holiday. Don't take a pen in your hand while you are away. You will have plenty to see about and to think about, and I am sure it would do you a deal of good to give it up altogether for a time, and you will take it up freshly afterwards. Besides, you will have people coming on board, and your advice will be asked, and you will have to decide all sorts of things, and you know you won't be able to bring your mind out of your books if you have them on board.'

He said something like it when I first began to talk of packing, but it seemed to me impossible that I could give up work altogether; but the sight of those four great boxes staggered me. Then I said: 'Zaimes, this is not like that little cabin on board the yacht. This is quite a large vessel in comparison.' 'Yes, sir,' he replied, 'but your cabin won't be larger than the main cabin in the _Surf_, not so large I should fancy.' This surprised me altogether, but he a.s.sured me it was so, and pressed me so much on the matter that I at last agreed to leave them all behind."

"That is a capital thing, father. Zaimes was quite right. Your state-room is a very nice cabin, but except that it is a good deal more lofty, it is certainly not so large by a good deal as the main cabin in the _Surf_; besides, if you had your books you would be always shut up there, and what I thought of all along, from the time you first spoke about coming out, was what a good thing it would be for you to have a thorough holiday, and to put aside the old work altogether."

"You don't think it valuable, Horace?" Mr. Beveridge asked wistfully.

"I do, father. I think it most valuable, and no one can be prouder than I am of your reputation, and that all learned men should acknowledge the immense value of your works to Greek students. But, father, after all, the number of men who go into all that is very small, and I can't see why your life should be entirely given up to them. I think that at any rate it will be a first-rate thing for you, and extremely pleasant for me, that you should be like the rest of us while we are out on this expedition. As Zaimes says, you will have a lot of things to decide upon, and we are going to lead an active, stirring life, and it is new Greece we shall have to think about, and not the Greece of two thousand years ago. It is your aim to raise, not the Greeks of the time of Miltiades, but a people who in these two thousand years have become a race, not only of slaves, but of ignorant savages, for these ma.s.sacres of unarmed people show that they are nothing better; and not only to free them, but to make them worthy of being a nation again. I think, father, there will be ample scope for all your thoughts and attention in the present without giving a thought to the niceties of the language spoken by Demosthenes, so I am truly and heartily glad you decided to leave your books behind you."

"I think you are right, Horace; I am sure you are right; but it is a wrench to me to cut myself loose altogether from the habits of a lifetime."

"And now, father, what are you going to do about clothes?" Horace said, looking at him closely.

"About clothes!" his father repeated vaguely. "I have brought two large boxes full with me."

"Yes, father, no doubt you have clothes, but I am sure that on board ship--and you will be always living there, you know--it will be much more comfortable for you to have clothes fit for the sea. Frilled shirts, and ruffles, and tight breeches, and high-heeled Hessian boots, and short-waisted tail-coats are all very well on sh.o.r.e, but the first time you are out in a good brisk gale, you would wish them anywhere. What you want is a couple of suits, at least, of blue cloth like mine, with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, and a low cloth cap like this that will keep on your head whilst it is blowing, in fact the sort of suit that the owner of a big yacht would naturally wear. Of course when you go ash.o.r.e to see any of the Greek leaders, you might like to go in your ordinary dress; but really for sea you want comfortable clothes, and a good thick pea-jacket for rough weather."

"Perhaps you are right, Horace, and I did remark that my heels left marks upon the deck of the _Surf_."

"Certainly they did, father; and it would be agony to Will Martyn to have the beautiful white deck of the _Creole_ spoiled."

"But it is too late now, it is half-past eight o'clock."

"Oh, I can take you to a shop where they keep this sort of thing.

Besides, there are twelve hours before we start, and by paying for it one can get pretty nearly anything made in twelve hours."

Mr. Beveridge suffered himself to be persuaded. Fortunately the outfitter had a couple of suits ordered by one of the officers of a ship of war in harbour nearly completed. These he agreed to alter to fit Mr. Beveridge by the morning, and to put on extra hands to turn out fresh suits for the person for whom they were intended. The gold lace, white facings, and other distinguishing marks would be removed, and plain bra.s.s b.u.t.tons subst.i.tuted for the royal b.u.t.tons. Two or three pairs of shoes with low heels were also obtained. The clothes came home at seven in the morning, and Mr. Beveridge came down to breakfast looking like the smart captain of a merchantman.

"I feel as if I were dressed for a masquerade, Horace," he said with a smile.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A DISCUSSION ABOUT CLOTHES]