The Red Rover Part 12

Although the Rover was far from believing, with his captive, that the tongue of Desire could disturb the harmony of his ship, he was in the humour to be indulgent. Touching the spring again, he took a handful of the gold, and, extending it towards Homespun demanded,--

"Will you take the bounty, and the oath? The money will then be your own."

"The Lord defend us from the evil one, and deliver us all from temptation!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the tailor: "Heroic Rover, I have a dread of the law. Should any evil overcome you, in the shape of a King's cruiser, or a tempest cast you on the land, there might be danger in being contaminated too closely with your crew. Any little services which I may render, on compulsion, will be overlooked, I humbly hope and I trust to your magnanimity, honest and honourable Commander, that the same will not be forgotten in the division of your upright earnings."

"This is but the spirit of cabbaging, a little distorted muttered the Rover, as he turned lightly on his heel, and tapped the gong, with an impatience that sent the startling sound through every cranny of the ship.

Four or five heads were thrust in at the different doors of the cabin, and the voice of one was heard, desiring to know the wishes of their leader.

"Take him to his hammock," was the quick, sudden order.

The good-man Homespun, who, from fright or policy, appeared to be utterly unable to move, was quickly lifted from his seat, and conveyed to the door which communicated with the quarter-deck.

"Pause," he exclaimed to his unceremonious bearers, as they were about to transport him to the place designated by their Captain; "I have one word yet to say. Honest and loyal Rebel, though I do not accept your service, neither do I refuse it in an unseemly and irreverent manner. It is a sore temptation, and I feel it at my fingers' ends. But a covenant may be made between us, by which neither party shall be a loser, and in which the law shall find no grounds of displeasure. I would wish, mighty Commodore, to carry an honest name to my grave, and I would also wish to live out the number of my days; for, after having pa.s.sed with so much credit, and unharmed, through five b.l.o.o.d.y and cruel wars"----

"Away with him!" was the stern and startling interruption.

Homespun vanished, as though magic had been employed in transporting him, and the Rover was again left to himself. His meditations were not interrupted, for a long time, by human footstep or voice. That breathing stillness, which unbending and stern discipline can alone impart, pervaded the ship. A landsman, seated in the cabin, might have fancied himself, although surrounded by a crew of lawless and violent men, in the solitude of a deserted church, so suppressed, and deadened, were even those sounds that were absolutely necessary. There were heard at times, it is true, the high and harsh notes of some reveller who appeared to break forth in the strains of a sea song, which, as they issued from the depths of the vessel, and were not very musical in themselves, broke on the silence like the first discordant strains of a new pract.i.tioner on a bugle. But even these interruptions gradually grew less frequent, and finally became inaudible. At length the Rover heard a hand fumbling about the handle of the cabin door, and then his military friend once more made his appearance.

There was that in the step, the countenance, and the whole air of the General, which proclaimed that his recent service, if successful, had not been achieved entirely without personal hazard. The Rover, who had started from his seat the moment he saw who had entered, instantly demanded his report.

"The white is so drunk, that he cannot lie down without holding on to the mast; but the negro is either a cheat, or his head is made of flint."

"I hope you have not too easily abandoned the design."

"I would as soon batter a mountain! my retreat was not made a minute too soon."

The Rover fastened his eyes on the General, for a moment, in order to a.s.sure himself of the precise condition of his subaltern, ere he replied,--

"It is well. We will now retire for the night."

The other carefully dressed his tall person, and brought his face in the direction of the little hatchway so often named. Then, by a sort of desperate effort, he essayed to march to the spot, with his customary upright mien and military step. As one or two erratic movements, and crossings of the legs, were not commented on by his Captain, the worthy martinet descended the stairs, as he believed, with sufficient dignity; the moral man not being in the precise state which is the best adapted to discover any little blunders that might be made by his physical coadjutor.

The Rover looked at his watch; and after allowing sufficient time for the deliberate retreat of the General, he stepped lightly on the stairs, and descended also.

The lower apartments of the vessel, though less striking in their equipments than the upper cabin were arranged with great attention to neatness and comfort. A few offices for the servants occupied the extreme after-part of the ship, communicating by doors with the dining apartment of the secondary officers; or, as it was called in technical language, the "ward-room." On either side of this, again, were the state-rooms, an imposing name, by which the dormitories of those who are ent.i.tled to the honours of the quarter-deck are ever called. Forward of the ward-room, came the apartments of the minor officers; and, immediately in front of them, the corps of the individual who was called the General was lodged, forming, by their discipline, a barrier between the more lawless seamen and their superiors.

There was little departure, in this disposition of the accommodations, from the ordinary arrangements of vessels of war of the same description and force as the "Rover;" but Wilder had not failed to remark that the bulkheads which separated the cabins from the birth-deck, or the part occupied by the crew, were far stouter than common, and that a small howitzer was at hand, to be used, as a physician might say, internally, should occasion require. The doors were of extraordinary strength, and the means of barricadoing them resembled more a preparation for battle, than the usual securities against petty encroachments on private property.

Muskets, blunderbusses, pistols, sabres, half-pikes, &c., were fixed to the beams and carlings, or were made to serve as ornaments against the different bulkheads, in a profusion that plainly told they were there as much for use as for show. In short, to the eye of a seaman, the whole betrayed a state of things, in which the superiors felt that their whole security, against the violence and insubordination of their inferiors, depended on their influence and their ability to resist, united; and that the former had not deemed it prudent to neglect any of the precautions which might aid their comparatively less powerful physical force.

In the princ.i.p.al of the lower apartments, or the ward-room, the Rover found his newly enlisted lieutenant apparently busy in studying the regulations of the service in which he had just embarked. Approaching the corner in which the latter had seated himself, the former said, in a frank, encouraging, and even confidential manner,----

"I hope you find our laws sufficiently firm, Mr Wilder."

"Want of firmness is not their fault; if the same quality can always be observed in administering them, it is well," returned the other, rising to salute his superior. "I have never found such rigid rules, even in"----

"Even in what, sir?" demanded the Rover, perceiving that his companion hesitated.

"I was about to say, 'Even in his Majesty's service,'" returned Wilder, slightly colouring. "I know not whether it may be a fault, or a recommendation, to have served in a King's ship."

"It is the latter; at least I, for one, should think it so, since I learned my trade in the same service."

"In what ship?" eagerly interrupted Wilder.

"In many," was the cold reply. "But, speaking of rigid rules, you will soon perceive, that, in a service where there are no courts on sh.o.r.e to protect us, nor any sister-cruisers to look after each other's welfare, no small portion of power is necessarily vested in the Commander. You find my authority a good deal extended."

"A little unlimited," said Wilder, with a smile that might have pa.s.sed for ironical.

"I hope you will have no occasion to say that it is arbitrarily executed,"

returned the Rover, without observing, or perhaps without letting it appear that he observed, the expression of his companion's countenance.

"But your hour is come, and you are now at liberty to land."

The young man thanked him, with a courteous inclination of the head, and expressed his readiness to go. As they ascended the ladder into the upper cabin, the Captain expressed his regret that the hour, and the necessity of preserving the incognito of his ship, would not permit him to send an officer of his rank ash.o.r.e in the manner he could wish.

"But then there is the skiff, in which you came off, still alongside, and your own two stout fellows will soon twitch you to yon point. A propos of those two men, are they included in our arrangements?"

"They have never quitted me since my childhood, and would not wish to do it now."

"It is a singular tie that unites two men, so oddly const.i.tuted, to one so different, by habits and education, from themselves," returned the Rover, glancing his eye keenly at the other, and withdrawing it the instant he perceived his interest in the answer was observed.

"It is," Wilder calmly replied; "but, as we are all seamen, the difference is not so great as one would at first imagine. I will now join them, and take an opportunity to let them, know that they are to serve in future under your orders."

The Rover suffered him to leave the cabin, following to the quarter-deck, with a careless step, as if he had come abroad to breathe the open air of the night.

The weather had not changed, but it still continued dark, though mild.

The same stillness as before reigned on the decks of the ship; and nowhere, with a solitary exception, was a human form to be seen, amid the collection of dark objects that rose on the sight, all of which Wilder well understood to be necessary fixtures in the vessel. The exception was the same individual who had first received our adventurer, and who still paced the quarter-deck, wrapped, as before, in a watch-coat. To this personage the youth now addressed himself, announcing his intention temporarily to quit the vessel. His communication was received with a respect that satisfied him his new rank was already known, although, as it would seem, it was to be made to succ.u.mb to the superior authority of the Rover.

"You know, sir, that no one, of whatever station, can leave the ship at this hour, without an order from the Captain," was the calm, but steady reply.

"So I presume; but I have the order, and transmit it to you. I shall land in my own boat."

The other, seeing a figure within hearing, which he well knew to be that of his Commander, waited an instant, to ascertain if what he heard was true. Finding that no objection was made, nor any sign given, to the contrary, he merely indicated the place where the other would find his boat.

"The men have left it!" exclaimed Wilder, stepping back in surprise, as he was about to descend the vessel's side.

"Have the rascals run?"

"Sir, they have not run; neither are they rascals They are in this ship, and must be found."

The other waited, to witness the effect of these authoritative words, too, on the individual, who still lingered in the shadow of a mast. As no answer was, however, given from that quarter, he saw the necessity of obedience. Intimating his intention to seek the men, he pa.s.sed into the forward parts of the vessel, leaving Wilder, as he thought, in the sole possession of the quarter-deck. The latter was, however, soon undeceived.

The Rover, advancing carelessly to his side, made an allusion to the condition of his vessel, in order to divert the thoughts of his new lieutenant, who, by his hurried manner of pacing the deck, he saw, was beginning to indulge in uneasy meditations.

"A charming sea-boat, Mr Wilder," he continued, "and one that never throws a drop of spray abaft her mainmast. She is just the craft a seaman loves; easy on her rigging, and lively in a sea. I call her the 'Dolphin,' from the manner in which she cuts the water; and, perhaps, because she has as many colours as that fish, you will say--Jack must have a name for his ship, you know, and I dislike your cut-throat appellations, your 'Spit-fires' and 'b.l.o.o.d.y-murders.'"

"You were fortunate in finding such a vessel. Was she built to your orders?"

"Few ships, under six hundred tons, sail from these colonies, that are not built to serve my purposes," returned the Rover, with a smile; as if he would cheer his companion, by displaying the mine of wealth that was opening to him, through the new connexion he had made. "This vessel was originally built for his Most Faithful Majesty; and, I believe, was either intended as a present or a scourge to the Algerines; but--but she has changed owners, as you see, and her fortune is a little altered; though how, or why, is a trifle with which we will not, just now divert ourselves. I have had her in port; she has undergone some improvements, and is now altogether suited to a running trade."

"You then venture, sometimes, inside the forts?"

"When you have leisure, my private journal may afford some interest," the other evasively replied. "I hope, Mr Wilder, you find this vessel in such a state that a seaman need not blush for her?"