Chapter III (3)

"The men did not turn up; neither they nor their trainers. The whole meeting, in fact, was what is vulgarly called a bilk. But where is Sir John?"

"I beg your pardon, sir?"

"His Excellency--you have made him comfortable?"

"His Excellency, sir, has not turned up. In fact," said the first lieutenant prettily, "I fancy that His Excellency, too, must have done what is--er--vulgarly termed a bilk."

Captain Suckling stared from his lieutenant to the shore, and from the shore to the horizon.

"The boat waited no less than five hours for him yesterday, and in the end brought off his valet with some luggage. He gave us to understand that Sir John and his Secretary would follow in a shore-boat. This was twenty-four hours ago, and they have not appeared."

"Extraordinary!"

"I have to report also," said the first lieutenant, "that at seven o'clock, in accordance with orders, Mr. Fraser took a party ashore. The press has been active of late, and at first they found the whole town shy: in fact, sir, they met with no success at all until midnight, when, just as they were on the point of returning, they raided a house and brought off eight able-bodied fellows--as fine a lot, sir, physically, as you could wish to see. For their seamanship I am unable to answer, having had no opportunity to question them. To judge from his report Mr. Fraser handled the affair well, and brought them off expeditiously; and I am relieved to tell you that, so far, we have had no trouble from shore--not so much as an inquiry sent."

"That is luck, indeed," said Captain Suckling approvingly; "and a comfort to hear at the end of a day when everything has gone wrong. Fetch them up--that is, if they are sufficiently recovered; fetch them up, and when I've shifted these clothes I'll have a look at them while daylight serves."

The Captain went below: and five minutes later I saw the first of the prisoners haled up through the hatchway. It was the man in the double overcoat; but he had lost his colour, and he no sooner reached the deck than he lurched and sat down with a thud. Since no one helped him to rise, he remained seated, and gazed about him with a drugged and vacuous stare, while the light of the approaching sunset shimmered over his mother-of-pearl buttons.

The next to emerge was my friend of the splendid torso, handcuffed and fettered. When he, too, lurched and fell, I became aware for the first time that the frigate was rocking on a gentle south-westerly swell, and I turned to the bulwarks for a glance overside at the water which, up to an hour ago, had been smooth as a pond. I had scarcely reached the bulwarks when a voice forward sang out that a boat was approaching and hailing us.

Sure enough, a boat there was: and in the stern-sheets, with a couple of watermen pulling, sat two men of whom the portliss was promptly and confidently proclaimed by the midshipmen gathered around me to be no other than His Excellency.

The boat approached and fell alongside the ladder suspended a few yards aft of the ship's waist. The first lieutenant, having sent word to the Captain, hurried forward to receive our distinguished guest, who climbed heavily on his Secretary's arm. Arriving thus at the sally-way, he nodded graciously in answer to the first lieutenant's salute, pulled out a handkerchief to mop his brow, and in the act of mopping it cast a glance across the deck.

"Captain Suckling has asked me to present his excuses to your Excellency--" began the first lieutenant in his best tone of ceremony; and, with that, took a step backward as His Excellency flung out a rigid arm.

"The Dustman! for a fiver!"

"I--I beg your Excellency's pardon--your Excellency was pleased to observe--"

"The Dustman, for a hundred pounds! Jem Clark, too! Oh, catch me, Winyates!" and His Excellency staggered back, clutching at a man-rope with one hand, pointing with the other. His gaze wavered from the prisoners amidships to the first lieutenant, and from the first lieutenant to the poop-ladder, at the head of which Captain Suckling at this instant appeared, hastily buttoning his uniform coat as he came.

"A thousand pardons, your Excellency!"

"A thousand pounds, sir!"

"Hey?"

"If that's not the very pair of scoundrels I've been hunting the length and breadth of Hampshire. Fareham was the venue, Captain Suckling--if I am addressing Captain Suckling--"

"You are, sir. I--I think you said Fareham--"

"I did, sir. I don't mind confessing to you--here on the point of departing from England--that I admire the noble art, sir: so much so that I have wasted a whole day in the neighbourhood of Fareham, hunting for a prize-fight which never came off."

"But--but I don't mind confessing to your Excellency," gasped Captain Suckling, "that _I_ too have been at Fareham and have--er--met with the same disappointment."

"Disappointment, sir! When you have kidnapped the scoundrels--when you have them on board at this moment!" Sir John pointing a shaking forefinger again at the pressed men.

Captain Suckling stared in the direction where the finger pointed. "You don't mean to tell me--" he began weakly, addressing the first lieutenant.

"Mr. Fraser brought them aboard, sir," said the first lieutenant.

"And we'll have the law of you for it," promised the man in the pearl buttons from amidships, but in a weakening voice.

Captain Suckling was what they call an officer and a gentleman. He drew himself up at once.

"In my absence my officers appear to have made a small mistake. But I hope your Excellency may not be disappointed after all. I have never set eyes on either of these men before, but if that naked man be the Dustman I will put up a hundred pounds upon him, here and now; or on the other if that runs counter to your Excellency's fancy--"

"Jem Clark's my man," said Sir John. "I'll match your stake, sir."

"--And liberty for all if they show a decent fight, and a boat to set them ashore," went on Captain Suckling. "Is that a fair offer, my men?"

The man in the pearl buttons raised his head to answer for the two pugilists, who by this time were totally incapable of answering for themselves. He showed pluck, too; for his face shone with the colour of pale marble.

"A hundred pounds! Oh, go to blazes with your hundred pounds! When I tell you the Prince Regent himself had five hundred on it. . . . Oh! prop 'em up, somebody! and let the fools see what they've done to poor Jem, that I'd a-trained to a hair. And the money of half the fancy depending on his condition. . . ."

"Prop 'em up, some of you!" echoed Captain Suckling. "Eh? God bless my soul--"

He paused, staring from the yellow faces of the pugilists to the battered and contused features of his own seamen.

"God bless my soul!" repeated Captain Suckling. "Mr. Fraser!"

"Sir!" The second lieutenant stepped forward.

"You mean to tell me that--that these two men--inflicted--er--_all this?_"

"They did, sir. If I might explain the unfortunate mistake--"

"You describe it accurately, sir. I could say to you, as Sir Isaac Newton said to his dog Diamond, 'Oh, Mr. Fraser, Mr. Fraser, you little know what you have done!'"

"Indeed, sir, I fear we acted hastily. The fact is we found the two new midshipmen, Rodd and Hartnoll, in something of a scrape with these people. . . ." The second lieutenant told how he had found me battering at the door, and how he had effected an entrance: but the Captain listened inattentively.

"Your Excellency," he said, interrupting the narrative and turning on the Governor, "I really think these men will give us little sport here."

"They are going to be extremely ill," said His Excellency, "and that presently."

"I had better send them ashore."

"Decidedly; and before they recover. Also, if I might advise, I would not be too hasty in knocking off their handcuffs."

"We are short-handed," mused Captain Suckling; "but really the situation will be a delicate one unless we weigh anchor at once."

"You will be the laughing-stock of all the ships inside the Wight, and the object of some indignation ashore."

"There is nothing to detain us, for doubtless I can pick up a few recruits at Falmouth. . . . But what to do with these men?"

"May I suggest that I have not yet dismissed my shore-boat?"

"The very thing!" Captain Suckling gazed overside, and then southward towards the Wight, whence a light sea-fog was drifting up again to envelop us.

"I never thought," he murmured, "to be thankful for thick weather to weigh anchor in!"

He turned and stared pensively at the line of prisoners who had staggered one by one to the bulwarks, and leaned there limply, their resentment lost for the time in the convulsions of nature.

"It seems like taking advantage of their weakness," said he pensively.

"It does," agreed His Excellency; "but I strongly advise it."

A moment, and a moment only, Captain Suckling hesitated before giving the order. . . . Then in miserable procession the strong men were led past us to the ladder, each supported by two seamen. The gangway was crowded, and my inches did not allow me to look over the bulwarks: but I heard the boatswain knocking off their irons in the boat below, and the objurgating voice of the man in the pearl buttons.

"Give way!" shouted someone. I edged towards the gangway and stooped; and then, peering between the legs of my superior officers, I saw the boat glide away from the frigate's side. Our friends lay piled on the bottom-boards and under the thwarts like a catch of fish. One or two lifted clenched fists: and the boatmen, eyeing them nervously, fell to their oars for dear life.

As the fog swallowed them, someone took me by the ear.

"Hullo, young gentlemen," said His Excellency, pinching me and reaching out a hand for Hartnoll, who evaded him, "it seems to me you deserve a thrashing apiece for yesterday and a guinea apiece for to-day. Will you take both, or shall we call it quits?"

Well, we called it quits for the time. But twenty years later, happening upon me at Buckingham Palace at one of King William's last levees, he shook hands and informed me that the balance sheet at the time had been wrongly struck: for I had provided him with a story which had served him faithfully through half his distinguished career. A week later a dray rumbled up to the door of my lodgings in Jermyn Street, and two stout men delivered from it a hogshead of the sherry you are now drinking. He had inquired for Hartnoll's address, but Hartnoll, poor lad, had lain for fifteen years in the British burial-ground at Port Royal.

THE BLACK JOKE.

A REPORTED TALE OF TWO SMUGGLERS.