The King's Own Part 23

"I wish to G.o.d you had the same complaint, sir," replied the first-lieutenant, who owed him one. "Macallan, is Mr Prose ill?"

"Not that I know of; he has not applied to me. I'll go down and see him before I go on sh.o.r.e."

Macallan came up laughing, but he recovered his seriousness before Bully perceived it.

"Well, doctor?"

"Mr Prose is certainly not very fit to come on deck in his present state," said Macallan, who then descended the side, and the boat, which had been waiting for him, shoved off. But, this time, Jerry was caught in his own trap.

"Mr J---, where is the dog's collar?--it must be oiled and cleaned,"

said the first-lieutenant.

"Shall I give it to the armourer, sir?" replied Jerry.

"No, bring it up to me."

Jerry went down, and returned in a few minutes. "I cannot find it, sir; I left it in the berth when I came on deck."

"That's just like your usual carelessness, Mr J---. Now go up to the mast-head, and stay there till I call you down."

Jerry, who did not like the turn which the joke had taken, moved up with a very reluctant step--at the rate of about one ratline in ten seconds.

"Come, sir, what are you about?--_start up_."

"I'm no _up-start_, sir," replied Jerry to the first-lieutenant--a sarcasm which hit so hard, that Jerry was not called down till dark; and long after Prose had, by making interest with the captain's steward, obtained the keys, and released his neck from its enthralment.

The party in the second boat were landed on the reef, and while the rest were attending to the survey, Macallan was employed in examining the crevices of the rocks, and collecting the different objects of natural history which presented themselves. The boat was sent on board, as it was not required until the afternoon, when the gun-room officers were to return to dinner. The captain's gig remained on sh.o.r.e, and the c.o.xswain was employed by Macallan in receiving from him the different sh.e.l.ls and varieties of coral, with which the rocks were covered.

"Take particular care of this specimen," said the surgeon, as he delivered a bunch of corallines into the hands of Marshall, the c.o.xswain.

"I ax your pardon, Mr Macallan,--but what's the good of picking up all this rubbish?"

"Rubbish!" replied the surgeon, laughing--"why you don't know what it is. What do you think those are which I just gave you?"

"Why, weeds are rubbish, and these be only pieces of seaweed."

"They happen to be _animals_."

"Hanimals!" cried the c.o.xswain, with an incredulous smile; "well, sir, I always took 'em to be _weggitables_. We live and larn, sure enough.

Are cabbage and _hingions hanimals_ too?"

"No," replied the surgeon, much amused, "they are not, Marshall; but these are. Now take them to the boat, and put them in a safe place; and then come back."

"I say, Bill, look ye here," said the c.o.xswain to one of the sailors, who was lying down on the thwarts of the boat, holding up the coral to him in a contemptuous manner--"what the h.e.l.l d'ye think this is? Why, it's a hanimal!"

"A what?"

"I'll be blow'd if the doctor don't say it's a hanimal!"

"No more a hanimal than I am," replied the sailor, laying his head down again on the thwarts, and shutting his eyes.

In a few minutes Marshall returned to the surgeon, who, tired with clambering over the rocks, was sitting down to rest himself a little.

"Well, Marshall, I hope you have not hurt what I gave into your charge."

"Hurt 'em!--why, sir, a'ter what you told me, I'd as soon have hurt a cat."

"What, you are superst.i.tious on that point, as seamen generally are."

"Super-what, Mr Macallan? I only knows, that they who ill-treats a cat, comes worst off. I've proof positive of that since I have been in the service. I could spin you a yarn."

"Well now, Marshall, pray do. Come, sit down here--I am fond of proof positive. Now, let me hear what you have to say, and I'll listen without interrupting you."

The c.o.xswain took his seat, as Macallan desired, and, taking the quid of tobacco out of his cheek, and laying it down on the rock beside him, commenced as follows:--

"Well now, d'ye see, Mr Macallan, I'll just exactly tell you how it was, and then I leaves you to judge whether a cat's to be sarved in that way. It was when I belonged to the _Survellanty_ frigate, that we were laying in Cawsand Bay, awaiting for sailing orders. We hadn't dropped the anchor more than a week, and there was no liberty ash.o.r.e. Well, sir, the purser found out that his steward was a bit of a rascal, and turns him adrift. The ship's company knew that long afore; for it was not a few that he had cheated, and we were all glad to see him and his traps handed down the side. Now, sir, this here fellow had a black cat--but it warn't at all like other cats. When it was a kitten, they had cut off his tail close to its starn, and his ears had been shaved off just as close to his figure-head, and the hanimal used to set up on his hind legs and fight like a rabbit. It had quite lost its natur, as it were, and looked, for all the world, like a little imp of darkness.

It always lived in the purser's steward's room, and we never seed him but when we went down for the biscuit and flour as was sarving out.

"Well, sir, when this rascal of a steward leaves the ship, he had no natural affection for his cat, and he leaves him on board, belonging to n.o.body; and the steward as comes in his place turns him out of the steward's room; so the poor jury-rigged little devil had to take care of itself.

"We all tried to coax it into one berth or the other, but the poor brute wouldn't take to n.o.body. You know, sir, a cat doesn't like to change so he wandered about the ship, mewing all day, and thieving all night. At last, he takes to the master's cabin, and makes a dirt there, and the master gets very savage, and swears that he'll kill him, if ever he comes athwart him.

"Now, sir, you knows it's the natur of cats always to make a dirt in the same place,--reason why, G.o.d only knows; and so this poor black devil always returns to the master's cabin, and makes it, as it were, his head-quarters. At last the master, who was as even-tempered an officer as ever I sailed with, finds one day that his s.e.xtant case is all of a smudge: so being touched in a sore place, he gets into a great rage, and orders all the boys of the ship to catch the cat; and after much ado, the poor cat was catched, and brought aft into the gun-room. 'Now, then, P---,' said the master to the first-lieutenant, 'will you help kill the dirty beast?'--and the first-lieutenant, who cared more about his lower deck being clean than fifty human beings' lives, said he would; so they called the sargant o' marines, and orders him to bring up two ship's muskets and some ball cartridge, and they goes on deck with the cat in their arms.

"Well, sir, when the men saw the cat brought up on deck, and hears that he was to be hove overboard, they all congregates together upon the lee gangway, and gives their opinions on the subject,--and one says, 'Let's go and speak to the first-lieutenant;' and another says, 'He'll put you on the black list;' and so they don't do nothing--all except Jenkins, the boatswain's mate, who calls to a waterman out of the main-deck port, and says, 'Waterman,' says he, 'when they heaves that cat overboard, do you pick him up, and I'll give you a shilling;' and the waterman says as how he would, for you see, sir, the men didn't know that the muskets had been ordered up to shoot the poor beast.

"Well, sir, the waterman laid off on his oars, and the men, knowing what Jenkins had done, were content. But when the sargant o' marines comes up, and loads the muskets with ball cartridges, then the men begins to grumble; howsomever, the master throws the cat overboard off the lee-quarter, and the waterman, as soon as he sees her splash in the water, backs astarn to take her into the boat, but the first-lieutenant tells him to get out of the way, if he doesn't want a bullet through his boat--so he pulls ahead again. The master fires first, and hits the cat a clip on the neck, which turns her half over, and the first-lieutenant fires his musket, and cuts the poor hanimal right in half by the backbone, and she sprawls a bit, and then goes down to the bottom.

'Capital shots both,' says the first-lieutenant; 'he'll never take an observation of your s.e.xtant again, master;' and they both laughs heartily, and goes down the ladder to get their dinner.

"Well, sir, I never seed a ship's company in such a farmant, or such a nitty kicked up 'tween decks, in my life: it was almost as bad as a mutiny; but they piped to grog soon a'ter, and the men goes to their berths and talks the matter over more coolly, and they all agrees that no good would come to the ship a'ter that, and very melancholy they were, and couldn't forget it.

"Well, sir; our sailing orders comes down the next day, and the first cutter is sent on sh.o.r.e for the captain, and six men out of ten leaves the boat, and I'm sure that it warn't for desartion, but all along of that cat being hove overboard and butchered in that way--for three on 'em were messmates of mine--for you know, sir, we talks them matters over, and if they had had a mind to quit the sarvice, I should have know'd it. The captain was as savage as a bear with a sore head, and did nothing but growl for three days afterwards, and it was well to keep clear on him, for he snapped right and left, like a mad dog. I never seed him in such a humour afore, except once when he had a fortnight's foul wind.

"Well, sir, we had been out a week, when we falls in with a large frigate, and beats to quarters. We expected her to be a Frenchman; but as soon as she comes within gunshot, she hoists the private signal, and proves to be the _Semiramus_, and our senior officer. The next morning, cruising together, we sees a vessel in-sh.o.r.e, and the _Semiramus_ stands in on the larboard tack, and orders us by signal to keep away, and prevent his running along the coast. The vessel, finding that she couldn't go no way, comes to an anchor under a battery of two guns--and then the commodore makes the signal for boats manned and armed, to cut her out.

"Well, sir, our first-lieutenant was in his cot, on his beam ends, with the rheumatiz, and couldn't go on sarvice; so the second and third lieutenants, and master, and one of the midshipmen, had command of our four boats, and the commodore sent seven of his'n. The boats pulled in, and carried the vessel in good style, and there never was a man hurt.

As many boats as could clap on her took her in tow, and out she came at the rate of four knots an hour. I was coaxswain of the pinnace, which was under the charge of the master, and we were pulling on board, as all the boats weren't wanted to tow--and we were about three cables' length ahead of the vessel, when I sees her aground upon a rock, that n.o.body knows nothing about, on the starboard side of the entrance of the harbour; and I said that she were grounded to the master, who orders us to pull back to the vessel to a.s.sist 'em in getting her off again.

"Well, sir, we gets alongside of her, and finds that she was off again, having only grazed the rock, and the boats towed her out again with a rally. Now the Frenchmen were firing at us with muskets, for we had shut in the battery, and as we were almost out of the musket-shot, the b.a.l.l.s only pitted in the water, without doing any harm--and I was a-standing with the master on the starn-sheets, my body being just between him and the beach where they were a-firing from. It seemed mortally impossible to hit him, except through me. Howsomever, a bullet pa.s.ses between my arm--just here, and my side, and striked him dead upon the spot. There warn't another man hit out of nine boats' crews, and I'll leave you to guess whether the sailors didn't declare that he got his death all along of murdering the cat.

"Well, sir, the men thought, as he had _fired first_, that now all was over; only Jenkins, the boatswain's-mate, said, 'that he warn't quite sure of that.' We parts company with the commodore the next day, and the day a'ter, as it turned out, we falls in with a French frigate. She had the heels of us, and kept us at long b.a.l.l.s, but we hoped to cut her off from running into Brest, if a slant o' wind favoured us--and obligating her to fight, whether or no. Tom Collins, the first lieutenant, was still laid up in his cot with the rheumaticks, but when he hears of a French frigate, he gets up, and goes on deck; but when he gets there he tips us a faint, and falls down on the carronade slide, and his hat rolled off his head into the waist. He tried, but he was so weak that he couldn't get up on his sticks again.

"Well, sir, the captain goes up to him, and says something about zeal, and all that, and tells him he must go down below again, because he's quite incapable, and orders the men at the foremost carronades to take him to his cot. Now, sir, just as we were handing him down the ladder, for I was captain of the gun, a shot comes in at the second port, and takes off his skull as he lays in our arms, and never hurts another man.

He was dead in no time; and what was more curious, it was the only shot that hit the frigate. The Frenchman got into Brest--so it was no action, after all.

"So, you see, Mr Macallan, in two _scrummages_ only two men were killed out of hundreds, and they were the two who had killed the cat! Now, that's what I calls proof positive, for I seed it all with my own eyes; and I should like to know whether you could do the same, with regard to that thing being a _hanimal_?"

"I will, Marshall; to-morrow you shall see that with your own eyes."

"To-morrow come never!" [see note 1] muttered the c.o.xswain, replacing the quid of tobacco in his cheek.