Chapter C: (dated From Adelaide.) (2)

He was born on the 4th September 1768--the same year with Napoleon--at an old melancholy chateau on the coast of Brittany, washed by the waves of the Atlantic ocean. His mother, like those of almost all other eminent men recorded in history, was a very remarkable woman, gifted with a prodigious memory and an ardent imagination--qualities which she transmitted in a very high degree to her son. His family was very ancient, going back to the year 1000; but, till illustrated by Francois René, who has rendered it immortal, the Chateaubriands lived in unobtrusive privacy on their paternal acres. After receiving the rudiments of education at home, he was sent at the age of seventeen into the army; but the Revolution having soon after broken out, and his regiment revolted, he quitted the service and came to Paris, where he witnessed the horrors of the storming of the Tuileries on the 10th of August, and the massacre in the prisons on 2d. September. Many of his nearest relations--in particular his sister-in-law, Madame de Chateaubriand, and sister, Madame Rozambo--were executed along with Malesherbes, shortly before the fall of Robespierre. Obliged now to fly to England, he lived for some years in London in extreme poverty, supporting himself by his pen. It was there he wrote his earliest and least creditable work, the _Essai Historique_. Tired of such an obscure and monotonous life, however, he set out for America, with the Quixotic design of discovering by land journey the North-west passage. He failed in that attempt, for which, indeed, he had no adequate means; but he dined with Washington, and in the solitudes of the Far West imbibed many of the noblest ideas, and found the subjects of several of the finest descriptions, which have since adorned his works. Finding that there was nothing to be done in the way of discovery in America, he returned to England. Afterwards he went to Paris, and there composed his greatest works, _Atala et René_ and the _Génie du Christianisme_, which soon acquired a colossal reputation, and raised the author to the highest pinnacle of literary fame.

Napoleon, whose piercing eye discerned talent wherever it was to be found, now selected him for the public service in the diplomatic line. He gives the following interesting account of the first and only interview he had with that extraordinary man, in the saloon of his brother Lucien:--

"I was in the gallery when Napoleon entered; his appearance
struck me with an agreeable surprise. I had never previously
seen him but at a distance. His smile was sweet and
encouraging; his eye beautiful, especially from the way
in which it was overshadowed by the eyebrows. He had no
charlatanism in his looks, nothing affected or theatrical in
his manner. The _Génie du Christianisme_, which at that time
_was making a great deal of noise_, had produced its effect
on Napoleon. A vivid imagination animated his cold policy; he
would not have been what he was if the Muse had not been there;
reason in him worked out the ideas of a poet. All great men are
composed of two natures--for they must be at once capable of
inspiration and action,--the one conceives, the other executes.

"Buonaparte saw me, and knew me I know not how. When he moved
towards me, it was not known whom he sought. The crowd opened;
every one hoped the First Consul would stop to converse with
him; his air showed that he was irritated at these mistakes.
I retired behind those around me; Buonaparte suddenly raised
his voice, and called out, "Monsieur de Chateaubriand." I then
remained alone in front; for the crowd instantly retired, and
re-formed in a circle around us. Buonaparte addressed me with
simplicity, without questions, preamble, or compliments. He
began speaking about Egypt and the Arabs, as if I had been
his intimate friend, and he had only resumed a conversation
already commenced betwixt us. 'I was always struck,' said
he, 'when I saw the Scheiks fall on their knees in the
desert, turn towards the east, and touch the sand with their
foreheads. What is that unknown thing which they adore in
the east?' Speedily then passing to another idea, he said,
'Christianity! the _Idealogues_ wished to reduce it to a system
of astronomy! Suppose it were so, do they suppose they would
render Christianity little? Were Christianity only an allegory
of the movement of the spheres, the geometry of the stars, the
_esprits forts_ would have little to say: despite themselves,
they have left sufficient grandeur to _l'Infame_.'[5]

"Buonaparte immediately withdrew. Like Job in the night, I felt
as if a spirit had passed before me; the hairs of my flesh
stood up. I did not know its countenance; but I heard its voice
like a little whisper.

"My days have been an uninterrupted succession of visions.
Hell and heaven continually have opened under my feet, or over
my head, without my having had time to sound their depths, or
withstand their dazzling. I have met once, and once only, on
the shores of the two worlds, the man of the last age, and the
man of the new--Washington and Napoleon--I conversed a few
moments with each--both sent me back to solitude--the first by
a kind wish, the second by an execrable crime.

"I remarked that, in moving through the crowd, Buonaparte cast
on me looks more steady and penetrating than he had done before
he addressed me. I followed him with my eyes.

'Who is that great man who cares not
For conflagrations?'"[6]--(Vol. iv. 118-121.)

This passage conveys a just idea of Chateaubriand's Memoirs: his elevation of mind, his ardent imagination, his deplorable vanity. In justice to so eminent a man, however, we transcribe a passage in which the nobleness of his character appears in its true lustre, untarnished by the weaknesses which so often disfigure the character of men of genius. We allude to his courageous throwing down the gauntlet to Napoleon, on occasion of the murder of the Duke d'Enghien:--

"Two days before the fatal 20th March, I dressed myself, before
taking leave of Buonaparte, on my way to the Valais, to which
I had received a diplomatic mission; I had not seen him since
the time when he had spoken to me at the Tuileries. The gallery
where the reception was going on was full; he was accompanied
by Murat and his aide-de-camp. When he approached me, I was
struck with an alteration in his countenance: his cheeks were
fallen in, of a livid hue; his eyes stern; his colour pale;
his air sombre and terrible. The attraction which had formerly
drawn me towards him was at an end; instead of awaiting, I
fled his approach. He cast a look towards me, as if he sought
to recognise me, moved a few steps towards me, turned, and
disappeared. Returned to the Hôtel de France, I said to several
of my friends, 'Something strange, which I do not know, must
have happened: Buonaparte could not have changed to such a
degree unless he had been ill.' Two days after, at eleven in
the forenoon, I heard a man cry in the streets--'Sentence
of the military commission convoked at Vincennes, which has
condemned to the pain of DEATH Louis Antoine Henri
de Bourbon, born 2d August 1772 at Chantilly.' That cry
fell on me like a clap of thunder: it changed my life as it
changed that of Napoleon. I returned home, and said to Madame
de Chateaubriand--'The Duke d'Enghien has just been shot.' I
sat down to a table and began to write my resignation--Madame
de Chateaubriand made no opposition: she had a great deal of
courage. She was fully aware of my danger: the trial of Moreau
and Georges Cadoudal was going on: the lion had tasted blood:
it was not the moment to irritate him."--(Vol. iv. 228-229.)

After this honourable step, which happily passed without leading to Chateaubriand's being shot, he travelled to the East, where he visited Greece, Constantinople, the Holy Land, and Egypt, and collected the materials which have formed two of his most celebrated works, _L'Itinéraire à Jerusalem_, and _Les Martyrs_. He returned to France, but did not appear in public life till the Allies conquered Paris in 1814, where he composed with extraordinary rapidity his famous pamphlet entitled _Buonaparte and the Bourbons_, which had so powerful an effect in bringing about the Restoration. The royalists were now in power, and Chateaubriand was too important a man to be overlooked. In 1821 he was sent as ambassador to London, the scene of his former penury and suffering; in 1823 he was made Minister of Foreign Affairs, and in that capacity projected, and successfully carried through, the expedition to Spain which reseated Ferdinand on the throne of his ancestors; and he was afterwards the plenipotentiary of France at the congress of Verona in 1824. He was too liberal a man to be employed by the administration of Charles X., but be exhibited an honourable constancy to misfortune on occasion of the Revolution of 1830. He was offered the portfolio of Foreign Affairs if he would abstain from opposition; but he refused the proposal, made a last noble and eloquent speech in favour of his dethroned sovereign in the Chamber of Peers; and, withdrawing into privacy, lived in retirement, engaged in literary pursuits, and in the composition or revising of his numerous publications, till his death, which occurred in June 1848.

Such a life of such a man cannot be other than interesting, for it unites the greatest possible range and variety of events with the reflections of a mind of great power, ardent imagination, and extensive erudition. His autobiography, or _Mémoires d'Outre Tombe_, as it is called, was accordingly looked for with great interest, which has not been sensibly diminished by the revolution of 1848, which has brought a new set of political actors on the stage. Four volumes only have hitherto been published, but the rest may speedily be looked for, now that the military government of Prince Louis Napoleon has terminated that of anarchy in France. The three first volumes certainly disappointed us: chiefly from the perpetual and offensive vanity which they exhibited, and the number of details, many of them of a puerile or trifling character, which they contained. The fourth volume, however, from which the preceding extracts have been taken, exhibits Chateaubriand, in many places, in his original vigour; and if the succeeding ones are of the same stamp, we propose to return to them.

THE GREEN HAND.

A "SHORT" YARN. PART IV.

"You must surely be tired by this time, ma'am, of this long-winded yarn of mine?" said the commander of the Gloucester to the elder of his fair listeners, next evening they met with the evident expectation of hearing further; "but after all, this must be dull work for you at present, so I daresay you are amused with anything by way of a change."

----Well, one morning when Westwood and I went on deck, it was a stark staring calm; as dead as a mill-pond, save for the long winding heave that seemed to come miles up out of the stale blue water, and get tired with the journey--from the horizon to us in one lazy coil, and on every side, just serving to jerk the wheel a spoke back and forward, with nobody at it. The very bits of pumpkin-paring and fat which the cook had thrown overboard the night before, lay still alongside, with an oily track oozing round about them from the 'slush,'[7]--the sails hanging from the yards, up and down, like clothes on a screen--and when you looked over the side away from the sun, you saw your own face, like a fellow's that had been long drowned, peering back at you as it were round the keel--in fact, there you scarce knew where the water _was_. Somehow or other the ship kept sheering round, by little and little, till, although one had chosen a shady spot, all of a sudden the blazing sun came right into his eyes; or the single streak of white cloud laying behind you, to starboard, a while after stuck itself before your face from the very opposite quarter--you fancying, too, you had your eye the whole time on the same bit of water. Being lost in a wood or a fog was nothing to it, especially with the sun at noon drawn up right overhead, so that you couldn't look aloft, and staring down into the sea out of a pool of bright light; "like one tremendously keen little eye," as some of the passengers said, "examining a big blind one." "Why," put in one of the "writers," "I fear he wants to take the _mote_ out of his brother's eye,--this vessel, that is to say!" "Hang it, I hope not!" said Winterton, rather alarmed. "He promises well to do it, then," said another young civilian, "but I wish he'd take the _beam_ out of his own, first--ha, Smythe?" However, few men have the spirit to laugh at little in a calm near the Line, so Smythe gave no more than a sickly grin, while Westwood looked the clergyman very properly.

Both passengers and crew, all of us that could swim, gave wistful looks now and then alongside at the water, hot as it seemed, for a bathe; just floating up, as it were, with the mere huge size of it, under a dazzle of light, and so blue and smooth you could'nt see a hair's breadth below; while, a bit off, the face of it, and the very air, appeared to dance and quiver like little streams of glass. However, all thoughts of bathing were put out of your head when you saw the black three-cornered affair, with a rake aft, somewhat like the end of a scythe, that went steering slowly round us; then cruising hither and thither, till its infernal horn was as dry as the deck; and at times driving straight off, as if it ran in a groove through the level surface, when back again it came from the other side, creeping lazily towards us, till it sank with a light _tip_, and a circle or two on the blue water. The hook and chain were hanging up and down over the taffrail, with the piece of rank pork looking green in the shadow near the rudder, where you read the white figures of her draught as plain as in dock; but the shark, a fifteen-feet customer, if he was an inch, was too knowing to have touched it. "Pity he's gone, Collins," said Ford to me, after we had watched him at last out of sight; "wasn't there any plan of catching him, I wonder! Now we shall have a bathe though, at any rate." "Gone?" said I, "he won't leave us in a hurry, if we don't leave _him_!" "Poh, man!" said Ford, "I tell you he's tired out and gone away!" Five minutes after, Ford was leaning over the quarter, and wiping his face, while he fanned himself with his straw-hat, which fell out of his hand into the water. He had got over into the mizen-chains to throw a line round it, when he gave a loud shriek, and jumped in-board again. Two or three fathoms of green came up from the keel, balancing on a pair of broad fins under Ford's hat, and a big round snout touched it; then a dozen feet of white belly gleamed in the water, the hat gave a gulp as it was drawn down, and a few small air-bells rose to the top. "He prefers some flavours to others you see, Ford," said I. "'Tis the second hat I've seen you lose: I hope your head won't be in the _third_; but you mariners, you see----," however Ford had bolted to his cabin. On turning round I perceived Miss Hyde with the General's lady under the awning on the other side, where the old lady leant against a cushion, with her hands crossed, and her bonnet-strings loose--though a strapping raw-boned Irishwoman she was--and kept Miss Hyde's maid fanning her from behind with a large feather _punkah_. The old lady had started at Ford's cry, and gave a look round at me, half fierce and half order-wise, as if she expected to know what was the matter at once. "Only my friend lost his hat, ma'am," said I, stepping forward. "These cadets are so taygious, my dear!" said she to the young lady, falling back again without the least other notice of me. "They plague the life of me, but the brigadier can't drill them as he would if this were a troop-ship--I wish he could, for the sake of the profession!--now, my dear, d_h_o kape out of the s-hun!" However I stuck where I was, fancying I caught the slightest bit of an arch twinkle in the corner of the young lady's eye, though she didn't look at me. "Keep going, can't ye!" said the old lady crossly to the maid. "No, ma'am, indeed!" said the girl, glancing over to her young mistress, "I'm ready to drop!" "Send up papa's kitmagar, then, Wilkins," said Miss Hyde; and the girl went off toward the gallery stair, muttering she "hoped she didn't come--here to be--made a black Indian slave of--at least to an old"--the remainder being lost in the stair. As I leant on the rail-netting, behind the old lady, I happened to tread on her fat pug-dog's tail, whereupon the ugly brute made its teeth meet without farther notice in the small of my leg, after which it gave a yelp, and ran beneath the chairs. "What's that, Die?" exclaimed its mistress: "good hivens! is that same griffin here yet, my dear! Hadn't he ayven the spirit to take a hint?--I say, was it _you_ hurt Dianny, young man?" "Oh, dear! no, ma'am, not for the world!" said I, looking at my trousers, hard as the thing was to stand, but thinking to smooth her over, though I was'nt quite up to the old Irishwoman, it turned out. "Ha! ha! so she bit you?" said she, with a flash of her hawk's-eye, and leaning back again coolly: "If he'd only kicked poor Die for it under my chair, now, I'd have forgiven him; but he hadn't ayven the heart at the time to drop her a curse,--and _I_ thinking all the while, too, by the luke of his eye, he was from the county Clare! My heart warms to the county Clare always, because, although I'm not Irish myself, you know, I'd once a schoolfellow was born in it--without counting all my relations! Oh, the smooth spalpeen!" continued she, harder than before, glancing at me as I looked all abroad from one to the other;--"listen, niver you let that fellow spake to you, my dear! he's too----." But here I walked quietly off, to put the poop's length betwixt me and the talking old vixen, cursing her and her dog both, quite enough to have pleased her Irish fancy.

On the quarterdeck, the Judge and the General seemed to enjoy the heat and quiet, sitting with their feet up before the round-house, and smoking their long red-twisted hookahs, while they watched the wreaths of smoke go whirling straight up from the bowls to the awning, and listened to the faint bubble of it through the water in the bottles, just dropping a word now and then to each other. A tall thin "native" servant, with long sooty hair hanging from his snow-white turban, stood behind the Judge's chair, bolt upright, with his arms folded, and twice as solemn as Sir Charles himself: you saw a stern-window shining far abaft, through one of the round-house doors, and the fat old fellow of a _consumah_[8] busy laying the cloth for tiffin, while the sole breath of air there was came out of there-away.

Suddenly eight bells struck, and every one seemed glad of something new; the Judge's _consumah_ came out salaaming to say tiffin was ready; the cuddy passengers went below for wine-and-water and biscuit; and the men were at dinner. There being nothing to take care of on deck, and the heat of course getting greater, not a soul staid up but myself; but I preferred at the moment lighting a cheroot, and going up aft to see clear of the awnings. The cockatoo had been left on the poop-rail, with his silver chain hitched round one of the mizen back-stays, where it shifted from one leg to the other, hooked itself up the back-stay as far as it could go, then hurried down again, and mused a bit, as wise as Solomon,--then screamed out at the top of its voice--"Tip--tip--pr-r-retty cacka--tip-poo--cok-ka--whee-yew-ew-ew!" finishing by a whistle of triumph fit to have split one's ears, or brought a gale of wind--though not on account of skill in its books, at any rate. Again it took to swinging, quietly head-down, at a furious rate, and then slewed upright to plume its feathers, and shake the pink tuft on its head. No sooner had I got up the stair, however, than, to my perfect delight, I saw Violet Hyde was still sitting aft, and the old Irishwoman gone; so I stepped to the taffrail at once, and, for something to be about, I hauled tip the shark-hook from astern. The moment I caught her eye, the young lady smiled--by way of making up, no doubt, for the old one. "How _very_ lonely it is!" said she, rising and looking out; "the ship almost seems deserted, except by us!" "By Jove! I almost wish it were," thought I. "A dead calm, madam," I said, "and likely to hold--the under-swell's gone quite down, and a haze growing." "Are we sure _ever_ to leave this spot then?" asked she, with a slight look of anxiety. "Never fear it, ma'am," said I; "as soon as the haze melts again, we're near a breeze I assure you--only, by the length of the calm and the heat together, not to speak of our being so far to east'ard, I'm afraid we mayn't get rid of it without a gale at the end to match." "Indeed?" said Miss Hyde. The fact was, Westwood and I had been keeping a log, and calculated just now we were somewhere to south-eastward of Ascension; whereas, by the captain and mate's reckoning, she was much farther to west. "I never thought the sea could appear so awful," said she, as if to herself--"much more than in a storm." "Why, madam," said I, "you haven't exactly seen one this voyage--one needs to be close-hauled off the Cape for that." Somehow or other, in speaking to _her_, by this time I forgot entirely about keeping up the sham cadet, and slipped into my own way again; so all at once I _felt_ her two dark-blue eyes looking at me, curiously. "How!--why," exclaimed she suddenly, and then laughing, "you seem to know all about it!--why, you speak--have you been studying sea affairs so thoroughly, sir, with your friend, who--but I _do_ think, now, one can scarcely _trust_ to what you have said?" "Well--why--well," said I, fiddling with the shark-hook, "I don't know how it is, but I feel as if I must have been at sea some time or other before;--you wouldn't suppose it, ma'am, but whenever I fix my eyes on a particular rope, I seem almost to know the name of it!" "And its _use_, too?" asked she, merrily. "I shouldn't wonder!" said I; "perhaps I was _born_ at sea, you know, ma'am?" and I gave a side-look to notice how she took it. "Ah! perhaps!" said Miss Hyde, laughing; "but do you know one sometimes fancies these things; and now I think of it, sir, I even imagined for a moment I had seen _yourself_ before!" "Oh," said I, "that couldn't be the case; I'm sure, for my part, I should recollect clear enough if I'd seen--a--a _lady_ anywhere! I think you said something of the kind, ma'am, that night of the last squall--about the water and the clouds, ma'am, you remember?" The young lady looked away, though a notion seemed to flash through her mind. "Yes," said she, "that terrible rain--_you_ were----" "Washed into the lee-scuppers," said I, indifferently, for I didn't want her to suspect it was _I_ that had kissed her hand in the dark as I carried her in. "I hope Sir Charles and yourself got in safe, madam?" However, she was watching the water alongside, and suddenly she exclaimed--"Dear! what a pretty little fish!" "By heavens!" said I, seeing the creature with its sharp nose and blue bars, as it glanced about near the surface, and then swam in below the ship's bilge again, "that's one of the old villain's pilots--he's lying right across our keel! I wish I could catch that shark!" The pork was of no use for such an old sea-lawyer, and I cast a wistful eye on the Irishwoman's fat pug-dog stretched asleep on her shawl by the bulwark; she was far gone in the family way, and, thought I, "he'd take _that_ in a trice!" I even laid out some marline from a stern-locker, and noticed how neatly one could pass the hook under her belly round to the tail, and seize her so snugly on, muzzled and all; but it was no go, with the devil to pay afterwards. All of a sudden I heard somebody hawking and spitting above the awning forward, near where the cockatoo kept still trying to master his own name. "The Yankee, for a thousand!" thought I, "is Daniel trying to walk along the spanker-boom!" Next, someone sung out, "Hal-loo-oo-oo!" as if there was a tomahawk over him, ready to split his brain. Miss Hyde looked alarmed, when the Scotch mate, as I thought, roared, "Shiver my tops'ls!" then it was a sailor hailing gruffly, "Bloody Capting Brown--bloody Capting Brown, damn your--Capting Brown!" "Somebody drunk aloft!" thought I, walking forward to see; when a funny little black head peeped round the awning, with a yellow nose as sharp as a marlinspike, and red spectacles, seemingly, round its keen little eyes; then, with a flutter and a hop, the steward's pet Mina-bird came down, and lighted just under the cockatoo. "Ha!" said I, laughing, "it's only Parson Barnacle!" as the men called him--a sooty little creature scarce bigger than a blackbird, with a white spot on each wing, and a curious pair of natural glasses on his head, which they kept in the forecastle and taught all sorts of "jaw," till they swore he could have put the ship about, took kindly to tar, and hunted the cockroaches like a cat. No doubt he was glad to meet his countryman the cockatoo, but Tippoo stuck up his crest, swelled his chops, and looked dreadfully frightened; while the Mina-bird[9] cocked his head on one side, gave a knowing wink as it were, though all the time as grave with his spectacles as a real parson. "How's her head?" croaked he, in a voice like a quarter-master's, "blowing hard!" "Damn Capting Brown!" and hopped nearer to the poor cockatoo, who could stand it no longer, but hooked himself up the backstay as fast as possible, out of sight, the chain running with him: and just as I swung myself clear of the awning to run aloft for a catch of it, out flew Parson Barnacle to the end of the crojack-yard, while the cockatoo gave a flap that loosed the kitmagar's lubberly hitch, and sent him down with his wings spread on the water. At another time it wouldn't have cost me a thought to go head-foremost after him, when I heard his young mistress exclaiming, "Oh, poor dear Tippoo will be drowned!" but recollecting our hungry green friend on the other side, I jumped down for the end of a rope to slip myself quietly alongside with. However, at the very moment, Tom the man-o'-war's man happening to come up from the fore-hatchway to throw something overboard, and seeing Miss Hyde's cockatoo, off went his shoes and jacket at once, and I heard the splash as he struck the water. I had scarce time to think, either, before I saw Mick O'Hooney's red head shoot up on deck, and heard him sing out, "Man overboard, be the powers, boys! Folly my lader! Hurroo!" and over he sprang. "Here's dip," said another, and in half a minute every man that could swim was floundering in the smooth water alongside, or his head showing as it came up,--pitching the cockatoo to each other, and all ready to enjoy their bathe; though, for my part, I made but one spring to the ship's starboard quarter, to use the only chance of saving the thoughtless fellows from a bloody fate to some of them. I knew the shark would be cautious at first, on such a sudden to-do, and I had marked his whereabouts while the men were all well toward the bows; and "hang it!" thought I, seeing the old woman's fat pug in my way, "Dianny, or die-all; I bear no malice, but you must go for it, my beauty!" As quick as thought, I made one turn of marline round her nose, took off the pork, and lashed her fast on to the hook all standing, in spite of her squeaks; then twisted the lady's shawl round the chain for a blind to it, and flung the whole right over the larboard quarter, where I guessed the old fellow would be slewing round astern to have a lookout before he went fairly in chase. I watched the line sink slowly with the weight over the gunwale for half a minute, afraid to let him see my head, and trembling for fear I should hear a cry from one of the men; when jerk went the rope clear of a belaying-pin as he ran off with his bait. I took a quick turn to hook him smartly in the throat, and then eased off again till the "cleets" brought him up with a "surge" fit to have parted the line, had it not been good new three-inch rope--though, as it was, the big Indiaman would soon have sheered stern-round to the force of it, if he'd only pulled fair. The young lady stood noticing what I did, first in a perplexed sort of way, and then with no small surprise, especially when the shark gave every now and then a fiercer tug, as he took a sweep astern: by this time, however, everybody was on deck in a crowd, the passengers all in a flurry, and half of the men scrambling up from alongside to tail on to the line, and run him out of water. So away they went with it full speed towards the bows, as soon as the ladies were out of the way--dragging two or three cadets back foremost, head over heels, down the poop stair--till, in spite of his tugging, the shark's round snout showed over the taffrail, with the mouth wide open under his chin, as it were, and one row of teeth laid flat behind another, like a comb-maker's shop. A running bowline passed round his handsome waist, then another pull, and over he came on the poop, floundering fourteen feet long, and flourishing his tail for room, till the carpenter chopped it across, in a lucky moment, with his axe.

All hands gathered round the shark to see him cut up, which was as good as a play to them, becalmed as we were; when, to my no small dismay, I heard Mrs Brigadier Brady's loud voice asking where her dog was; and the Brigadier himself, who seemed more afraid of his wife than anybody else, kept poking about with his red-faced English butler to find the animal. "For godsake," said he, in a half whisper, twenty times over, "haven't ye seen Mrs Brady's dog, any of ye?--she'll rout the ship inside out for it, captain, if we don't soon ase her mind!" However, I knew only Miss Hyde was aware who caught the shark, and as she didn't appear to have told, why of course I kept all fast, myself. "Here's a 'baccy-box!" sung out the big old boatswain, standing astride over the tail, while the cook and his black mate ripped away from the tail up. "Hand over, if ye please, sir," said 'ugly' Harry, it's mine's, Mr Burton!" Harry gave it a wipe on his knee, and coolly bit a quid off the end of his lost pigtail. The next thing was Ford's hat, which no one claimed, so black Sambo clapped it on his woolly head. "What's that you've got there now, Sambo?" said the boatswain, "out with it, my lad!" "Golly!" chuckled the nigger, rolling the whites of his eyes and grinning like mad; "oh sar, misser Barton! dis 'ere shark riglar navligator! I 'clare to you, sar, um got chr'ometer aboard! Oh gum! berry much t'ink dis you own lost silber tickler, misser Barton!" "Bless me, so it is, my lad!" said the boatswain, as the black handed him a silver watch as big as a turnip, and he looked at the cook, who was busy fumbling with his knife. "Sorry as you was _taxed_ with it, doctor!"[10] said he, doubtfully,--"well I'm blowed, though!--it only goes an hour and a-half,--and here it's a-ticking yet!" Here a burst of laughter went round, and somebody sung out, "Maybe the ould pawn-broking Judas of a shark winded it up, hisself, jist to mark the time o' his 'goin' off the hooks'!" "I say, doctor!" hailed another, "too bloody bad, an't it though, to cut up _yer uncle_?" "Ha! ha! ha!" cried the cadets and writers, looking at the Scotch surgeon, "d'ye hear that, doctor? I wouldn't stand it! They say you ain't particular in Edinbro', though! Some rum mistakes happened there, eh, doctor?" The Scotchman got into a passion at this, being the worst cut they could give any fellow from a country where they were famous for kindred and body-snatching at once--but all of a sudden there was a "Hulloo! Shiver my taw'sels! What's this? Let's see!" and the whole poopful of us were shoving together, and jumping on each other's shoulders to have a look. "Well, we-ell!" said the old boatswain, as he peered curiously into the mess of shark's bowels--"I'll be d----d!" "The likes o' that now!" croaked the old sailmaker, lifting up his two hands, "tan't lucky, Mr Burton!" "My eye! them's not young _sharks_, anyhow!" said one of the men. "What's t'ou think they be, mun," said the north-country Chips, "but litter o' yoong blind poops? an' here's t' ou'd un, see, as deed's mutton! Dang him, but some un's got an' baited t' hook wi't, there's nou't else in 's guts!" The whole poop was one roar of laughing, when Mrs Brady's pug was found delivered of four pups, inside the shark, since she went overboard, and two of 'em alive; the news ran fore and aft in a moment. "_Took short_ she's been, Jack!" said one. "Beats the profit Joney!" "I say, 'mate, them whelps is born twice over. Blessed if my Sal at home, now, wouldn't give a year's 'lotment for one on 'em!" "Poor devil!" said one of the writers, "she must have been sadly in want of a lying-in hospital!" "Look out, all hands of ye!" cried some one, "there's the old girl herself coming on deck! sharp's the word!" And away we scuttled right and left, some aloft, and some down one poop-ladder, as Mrs Brady, with the Brigadier and his butler after her, came fuming up the other. The black made one spring over the quarter as soon as he saw her; but the Irish topman, Mick, slipped his foot amongst the shark's blood, and rolled on his back, while the old bo'sun made stand in the thick of it behind. "Saze the villains, I charge ye, Brigadier!" screamed Mrs Brady, though he and his manservant only kept dodging the boatswain round a sort of a quagmire of blood and grease, while the old vixen caught Mick by his red hair and whiskers. "Where's my dog, ye murdering spalpeen?" said she, panting for breath, "what have ye done with my Dianny, ye monsther? Spake, or I'll----" "Be the holy elaven thousand, yer ladyship!" said Mick, "an' it's _lost_ did ye think she wor! isn't there _five_ of 'em back! Whisper! yer ladyship's riv'rence,--she's _laid in_, poor craythure, an'----" "_Oh!_ you Irish thief!" roared Mrs Brady, hitting him a slap as he tried to rise, that sent him down again, "is it _that_ you'd say to----" "No, thin'," sung out Mick, rubbing his ear, and guarding with one arm,--"rest her sowl! but I'm innycint! Av _that_'ll plase, mim, och an' I'll swear she died a vargin ----" Tug came both Mrs Brady's hands through his hair, while the butler caught a kick in the stomach from Mick's foot. "Murther!" gasped the poor fellow, "sure an' I dun' know she was ayven a faym'le; bad luck t'ye, 'mates, give uz a hand. Och, an' is this the road ye thrate a counthryman, mim?" "_Me_ your countryman! ye bogtrottin' wretch ye!" screamed the old fury, her brogue getting worse the more she heated,--"take _that_!--don't rise, if ye dare!" "Faix thin, yer ladyship darlin'," said O'Hooney, grinning in spite of his hard usage, "I tould a lie,--och, lave some o' me hair!--murther intirely! I'm----" All the time none of us could stir for sheer laughing, but seeing poor Mick like to fare hard with the old vixen, who was near as big as himself, and as strong as a horse, I whispered to the men to run round and let go the poop awning--so down it came, with a few buckets of water in it, over the five of them; and you just saw Mrs Brady's sharp elbow through the canvass, lifted for the next slap, when we had her all fast, struggling like a cat in a bag, while O'Hooney and the boatswain crept out below. "D----d breeze that we've had!" said the bo'sun, shaking himself on the forecastle. "Couldn't ye've bowsed over on the old jade's pitticuts, Mick?" said one of his shipmates, "and capsized her all standing?" "Sorra fut you'd stir, yourself, 'mate," said he, wiping his face, "wid such a shay grinnydeer! she'd manhandle ye as asy's twurl a mop!"

After all this you may suppose one didn't weary even of the calm. As soon as the decks were clear, most of us took tea on the poop, for fear of meeting the Brigadier's lady below, every one holding his cup ready for a start. Rollock the planter, who had slept and swung in his cot half the day, was like to split his sides when he heard the story: by the way, I believe both the little pups lived and throve on goats' milk, and the men called one of them 'Young Jonah,' though he had so much of the terrier that the old lady disowned him. It was quite dark, and cool for a night near the Line, though not a ripple stirred, and I staid after the rest to smoke a cigar, stopping every now and then near the aftermost bull's-eye, that shone through the deck, and thinking of Lota. "By Jove!" thought I, "she hasn't said a word of it. Think of having a secret, almost, with _her_!" After all, though, I felt well enough I might as soon hope for the Emperor of China's daughter as for such a creature, unless something wonderfully strange fell out: deucedly in love as I was, I wasn't puppy enough to fancy I'd ever succeed by mere talk; "but here's for a bold heart and a weather-eye!" I thought; "and if these can do it, I _will_!" said I aloud, when some one clapped me on the shoulder. "Well, Tom, are you there?" said I, thinking it was Westwood. "Why," answered old Rollock, laughing, "not so far wrong, my boy,--but as it's thirty years since any one called me so, I thought you _were_, for a moment!--meditating, eh?" "Only a cigar before bed-time--will you have one, sir?" "Ah--well," said the planter, "I'll take a light, at least--queer life this, eh? Shouldn't know this _was_ water, now--more like train-oil! Looks _junglish_ a little under the stars yonder." "Nothing but the haze come down," said I; "'tis clear enough aloft, though,--look out for squalls ere long!" "As your friend Ford would have it,"--said Rollock; "but how a lad of your spirit can manage to stand this so well, I can't think!" "Deyvilish dull, sir!" said I, with a lazy drawl, "but can't be helped, you know." Come, come, now, don't mend it by copying poor Winterton," chuckled Rollock; "you're no fool, Collins, so don't pretend to be. I say though, Collins my boy," continued he, rather gravely, "there is one really soft piece I begin to notice in you lately--I fear you're falling in love with that girl!" "_I_, sir!" said I; "dear me! what makes you--" "My dear boy," went on the kind-hearted old fellow, "I take an interest in you; no lad of your stuff practises all this tomfoolery without something under it, and I see you've _some_ serious meaning or other. Did you know her before?" "Oh--why--not exactly," I dropped out, taken rather short. "I see, I see!" he went on; "but I tell you what, Collins, a cadet can do nothing madder than marry at first landing; she had better be a cold-hearted flirt, after all--though, God knows, no man can say what _that_ does but one that's--felt it! I--I mean I _knew_--a young fellow that went out as ambitious as you can be, and he--" Here the planter's voice shook a little, and he stopped, puffing at his cheroot till the short end of it just lighted up his hook nose and part of his big white whiskers in the dark, only you saw his eye glistening too. "Devil take it!" thought I, "who'd have expected the old boy to be so sharp, though." "Well but, Collins," said he at last, "just you enter heart and soul into your profession; I'd stake my life you'll rise, who knows how far--get your captain's pay even, _then_ you may think of it--that is, if she--" "Why," said I, "d'ye suppose the Judge would--" "_Judge!_" exclaimed Mr Rollock, "when--worse and worse! weren't we talking of pretty little Kate Fortescue? My _dear_ boy, you don't intend to say you mean Miss Hyde! I left _that_ to your first officer, as they call him!--why, that young girl will be the beauty of Calcutta." At this I fancied some one else gave a whistle near us. "Of course, sir," said I, raising my voice, "you didn't suppose me such a fool." In fact, Miss Fortescue, had never entered my head at all. "Something strange about _you_, Collins!" I said the planter, a little shortly; "you puzzle me, I must say." As we turned to go below, I heard somebody walk down the poop-ladder, and then the mate's voice sting out from the binnacle to "strike eight bells!"

The calm was as dead as ever next morning, and, if possible, hotter than before--not a rope changed aloft, nor a cloth in the sails moved; but it was pretty hazy round us, which made the water a sort of pale old-bottle blue, that sickened you to look at; and a long dipping and drawling heave gradually got up as if there were blankets on it; the ship, of course, shifting round and round again slowly, like a dog going to lie down, and the helm getting every now and then a sudden jolt. Near noon it cleared up with a blaze of light, as it were; the sole difference at first being, that what looked like melting lead before, now turned into so many huge bright sheets of tin, every bend of it as good as flashing up thousands of needles in your eyes. A good deal surprised we were, however, shortly after, to find there was a sail in sight, another square-rigged vessel, seemingly standing up on the horizon six or seven miles off. Being end on to us at the time, though every glass in the ship was brought to bear on her, 'twas hard to say what she was; then she and we went bobbing and going up and down with a long round heave between us, slowly enough, but always at cross purposes, like two fellows see-sawing on a plank over a dyke. When she was up, we were down, and we just caught sight of her royal, no bigger than a gull on the water; yerk went our rudder, and next time she seemed to have vanished out of the glasses altogether, till we walked round to the other side, and made her out again under the awning on the opposite beam. At length she lifted broad to us for a moment or two, showing a long pale sort of hull with a red streak, apparently without ports, and brig-rigged, though the space betwixt her two masts was curious for that kind of craft. "Wonderful light-sparred for her size that brig, sir," said the third officer, dropping his glass. "Ay, so she is, Mr Small," replied Captain Williamson: "what would you call her, then? You've as good knowledge of craft as any man, Mr Small, I think." "Why," said the old mate, screwing his eye harder for a long look, "I'd say she's--not a cruiser, Captin Williamson--no, nor a Greenock Indyman--nor a--" "Oh!" said Finch, "some African timberer or other, I daresay, Small." "Well, Mr Finch," said the third mate, handing him the glass, "mayhap you'll just say yourself, sir." "No, no, Mr Small," said the captain; "I'd trust to you as soon as any man, sir, in a matter of the kind." "Why, the hull of her's wonderful Yankee-like, sir," said Small again; "I'm thinking they've been and _squared_ her out of a schooner--and a d----d bad job of it, sir! Bless us! what a lean-headed pair o'taups'ls, too,--as high as our fore one, sir." Suddenly the old mate gave his thigh a slap, and laid down his glass on the capstan: "Lord, sir!" said he, "that's the thing; she's nothing more nor less but a John Crapeau, Captain Williamson!" "I daresay you're right, Mr Small," said the skipper, taking the glass; "just so,--ay, ay,--I thought it myself!" "Pity old Nap's boxed up yonder then, sir," said the first officer, rubbing his hands and pointing to eastward, where he thought St Helena was: "why, sir, we should have the peppering of the Frenchman; I don't suppose we'd need to care though she were twice the size--and what's more, we want fresh water before seeing the Cape, sir!" "Well," said the old skipper, laughing, "that is the worst of it, Finch! As for spirit, you've as much as any man, Mr Finch, and I _do_ think we'd know how to take the weather-hand of him--eh?" "I'll be bound we should!" said Finch, laughing too. As for the Frenchman, both Westwood and I had made him out by his rig at once, thanks to man-o'-war practice; but we smiled to each other at the notion of making a prize of Monsieur, under Finch's management, with not a gun that could have been used for half a day, and everything else at sixes and sevens.

In a little while it was proposed amongst the cadets, hot as the calm was, to make a party to go and see the French vessel. Ford of course was at the head of it. Winterton thought they would no doubt have plenty of champagne on board, and some others, who could row, wanted to try their hands. Accordingly the captain's gig was got ready, a sort of awning rigged over it, and two or three of them got in; when one, who was Miss Fortescue's cousin, persuaded her to join, if Mr Rollock would come. Then the Brigadier, being rather a goodhumoured man, said he should like to face the French once more, and Daniel Snout shoved himself in without asking by your leave. One of the men was sent to take charge; and as there was room still, I was just going to jump in too, for the amusement of it, when Mrs Brady hurried to the taffrail with her parasol up, and said, if the Brigadier went, she should go as well,--in fact, the old woman's jealousy of her rib was always laughably plain. "Hang it! then," thought I, "catch me putting myself in the same boat with _her_! the same ship is enough, in all conscience!" So away they were lowered off the davits, and began pulling in tolerable style for the brig, a couple of hours' good work for such hands at mid-day, smooth water as it was. "Now, gentlemen," said the first officer briskly, as we looked after, them dipping over the long bright blue heave--"now, gentlemen, and ladies also, if they please, we'll have another party as soon as the men get their dinner--give these gentlemen a full hour's law, we'll overhaul them. See the larboard quarter-boat clear, Jacobs." It was just the least possible hazy again behind the brig in the distance, and as the Judge stood talking to his daughter on the poop, I heard her say, "Is the other vessel not coming nearer already, papa? See how much more distinct its sails are this moment--there!--one almost observes the white canvass!" "Pooh, Lota child!" answered Sir Charles, "that cannot be--'tis perfectly calm, don't you know?" In fact, however, Lota showed a sailor's eye for air, and I was noticing it myself; but it was _only_ the air made it look so. "All! now," exclaimed she again, "'tis as distant as ever! That must have been the light:" besides, the brig had been lifting on a wide swell. "I beg pardon, Sir Charles," said the mate, coming up and taking off his cap, "but might I use the freedom--perhaps yourself and Miss Hyde would like to visit the French brig?" The Judge looked at his daughter as much as to ask if she would like it. "Oh yes! so much!" exclaimed she, her bright eyes sparkling, "shall we? No, the deuce! Not _I_!" said Sir Charles: "I shall take my siesta. Quite safe, sir--eh?" "Oh, quite safe, Sir Charles!" said Finch, "a dead calm, sir--I'll take the utmost care you may be sure, Sir Charles--as safe as the deck, sir!" "Oh, very well," replied the Judge, and he walked down to see after his tiffin. The young lady was going down the quarter-gallery stair, when I caught my opportunity to say--"I hope you'll excuse it, Miss Hyde, ma'am--but I _do_ trust you'll not risk going in the boat so far, just now!" Half a minute after I spoke, she turned round, and looked at me with a curious sort of expression in her charming face, which I couldn't make out,--whether it was mischievous, whether it was pettish, or whether 'twas inquisitive. "Dear me!" said she, "why--do you--" "The weather might change," I said, looking round about, "and I shouldn't wonder if it did--or a swell might get up--or--" "I must say, Mr--Mr Collins," said she, laughing slightly, "you are very gloomy in anticipating--almost timorous, I declare! I wonder how you came to be so weather-wise! But why did you not advise--poor Mrs Brady, now?" I couldn't see her face as she spoke, but the tone of the last words made me feel I'd have given worlds to look round and see what it was like at the moment. "Perhaps, ma'am," said I, "you may remember the _rain_?" "Well, we shall see, sir!" replied she, glancing up with a bright sparkle in her eye for an instant, but only toward the end of the spanker-boom, as it were; and then tripping down the stair.