"Well, ma'am," continued our narrator, addressing himself, as usual, to his matronly relative in the chair, and with the accustomed catch-word, which was like the knotting together of his interrupted yarn: "well—it was between a fortnight and three weeks after losing sight of St Helena, that, being at last fairly in the latitude of the Cape, the frigate and schooner tacked in company, and stood close-hauled on a wind to the eastward. By the middle watch that night, when the moon set, we could make out the long flat top of Table Mountain heaving in sight off the horizon over against her. Next day, in fact, we were both of us quietly at anchor outside of the shipping in Table Bay; Cape Town glittering along on the green flat amongst the trees to southward, with the hills on each side of it like some big African lion lying on guard close by; while Table Mountain hove up, square-shouldered, blue to the left, four thousand feet high, as bare and steep as a wall, with the rocks and trees creeping up from the foot, and the wreaths of light cloud resting halfway, like nothing else but the very breakwater of the world's end. The sea stretched broad off to north and west, and a whole fleet of craft lay betwixt us and the land—half of them Indiamen—amongst which, you may be sure, I kept a pretty sharp look-out with the glass, to see if the Seringapatam were there still.

"I was soon saved further pains on this head, however, when shortly afterwards the frigate was beset by a whole squadron of bumboats, shoving against each other, and squabbling in all sorts of nigger tongues, who should be first: the chief of them being in evident command of a fat old Dutch Vrouw, with an immense blue umbrella over her, two greasy-looking Hottentot rowers in blankets, and a round-faced Dutch boy, the picture of herself, steering the boat; as the old lady made a clear berth for herself, by laying about her with her blue umbrella, till she was close under our quarter, sitting all the while with the broad round stern of her bright-coloured gown spread over a couple of beer-barrels, like a peacock's train. In two minutes more the little fellow was up the side, flourishing a bundle of papers under the first lieutenant's very nose, and asking the ship's custom, even whilst the sentries were ordering them all off. A midshipman took this youth by the cuff of the neck, and was handing him rather roughly along to the care of the purser's steward, when I stepped betwixt them; and a bumboat being the best directory on the point, of course, I soon found the old lady had had dealings with the Seringapatam, which her bluff-built little progeny described as a very good ship indeed, all having paid their bills, except one young officer, who had left a balance standing, for which he had given a letter to his brother in a ship that was to come after. As for the Indiaman herself, the Dutch boy said she had sailed about a week before our arrival, along with two others; and he was anxious to know if we were the vessel in question. I accordingly unfolded the open letter, which was addressed: 'Thomas Spoonbill Simm, Esquire, of His Britannic Majesty's ship Nincompoop (or otherwise)'; and it ran somehow thus:—'Hon. East India Company's ship Seringapatam, Table Bay, September 1, 1816.—My dear Brother,—This is to certify that I have eaten four dozen and a half of eggs, supplied by the worthy Vrouw Dulcken, the bearer of this, whom I can recommend as an old screw, and am due her for the same the sum of nine shillings and sixpence sterling, which you will kindly pay her, taking her receipt or mark, unless you are willing to forfeit our family watch, herewith deposited by me in the hands of said Mother Dulcken. I may add that, in justice to the worthy Vrouw, three of the above-mentioned eggs ought to be charged as fowls, which, by-the-way, I did not consume; and, with love to all at home, remain your affectionate brother, John Simm, H.E.I.C.S.—P.S. The watch I have discovered to be pinchbeck, and it does not go; so that a sad trick must have been originally played upon our venerated uncle, from whom it descended.—J. S.'

"This precious epistle was, without doubt, a joke of the fat mid Simm, who used to come such rigs over Ford the cadet, and that jumped overboard one night by mistake out of the Indiaman's quarter-boat, during the voyage. As for the existence of his brother Thomas, or the chance of his touching at that port, I set them down with the coming home of Vanderdecken; though the thought of this young scamp of a sea-lawyer breakfasting for a fortnight so comfortably, only a few feet distant from my charmer's state-room, sent me all abroad again, and right into the Indiaman's decks, by this time far out of sight of land. Piece of impudent roguery though it was, I was actually loath to part with the scrawl, which the reefer had fisted, no doubt, on the lid of his chest—probably with a pipe in his mouth at the time, it smelt so of tobacco—only seven days before: I could even see the grin on his fat face as he wrote it below in the steerage, with his chin up, and his eyes looking down past his pipe; while the little Dutch boy's round flat frontispiece glistened as he peered up at me, in the evident notion of my being the brother expected.

"In fact, ma'am, I was so soft as to intend paying the nine-and-sixpence myself, and keeping the letter, when I was startled to see the old lady herself had contrived to be hoisted on board amongst her cabbages; and having got wind of the thing, seemingly, she came waddling towards me to hand over Simm's watch to boot. In another half-minute the letter was being read aloud in the midst of the whole gun-room officers, amongst roars of laughter; the honest old Dutchwoman holding aloft the precious article, and floundering through to find out the rightful owner, as everyone claimed it and offered the nine-and-sixpence; while for my part I tried first to get down one hatchway, then another; and Lord Frederick himself came up on the starboard side of the quarter-deck in the height of the scene. Indeed, I believe it was a joke for months after in the Hebe, of a night, to say it was 'the second lieutenant's watch'; the sole revenge I had being to leave Mother Dulcken and her boy to expect the 'ship that was coming after.'

"A Government boat came aboard in the afternoon; and as soon as it left us Lord Frederick took his gig and steered for a frigate lying some distance off, which had the harbour-flag hoisted at her main, being the only man-o'-war besides ourselves, and commanded by a senior captain.

"Till it got dark I could see the crews of the nearest merchantmen looking over their bulwarks at us and our prize, apparently comparing the schooner with the frigate, and speculating on her character, as she lay a few fathoms off the Hebe's quarter, both of us rising and falling in turn on the long heave of the Cape swell from seaward. 'Twas hard to say, in fact, so far as their hulls went, which was the most beautiful sample of its kind; though the schooner's French-fashioned sticks and offhand sort of rigging, showed rather like jury-gear beside the tall regular sticks aloft of the Hebe's decks, with all her hamper perfect to a tee. The Hebe's men very naturally considered their own ship a model for everything that floated—a sort of a Solomon's temple, in short; and to hear the merciless way they ran down the Indiamen all round would have raised the whole homeward-bound fleet against us; whereas the schooner was our own, at any rate, and she was spoken of much in the manner one mentions an unfortunate orphan, as good as already christened by the name of the Young Hebe.

"This our learned chaplain said was quite improper, and he gave another name in place of it—the Aniceta—which meant, as he observed, the Hebe's youngest daughter; so the Aniceta she was called, happening to be a title that went, according to the boatswain, full as sweetly through the sheave-hole.

"Next day the schooner had landed not only her passengers from St Helena, but the prisoners also, as we still understood the French and their Kroomen to be. Not long after that Lord Frederick came back from Cape Town, looking grave, and went straight down to his cabin, or 'cabins,' as his lordship preferred to have it said. The first lieutenant dined that day with the captain; but they could scarcely have finished when the 'young gentlemen,' who had been as usual from the reefer's mess, came up with a message from the captain, that his lordship would be glad if I would join the first lieutenant and himself in a glass of wine. I found them sitting at the side of the table nearest the open port, with the decanters between them, and the broad bright bay in full sight to the shore and the foot of Table Mountain, which rose up blocking the port with the top of it beyond view; the sounds of the merchantmen clicking at their heavy windlasses, and hoisting in water-casks, floated slowly in from every side, while the schooner had hauled on her cable more abreast of the frigate, leaving the sight clear over the eddy round her low counter.

"'A lovely piece of workmanship, certainly!' observed Lord Frederick thoughtfully, as he leant back swinging his eyeglass round his finger, with the other hand in the breast of his waistcoat, and looking out at what was seen of the schooner. 'And how one might have improved her spars, too!' said Mr Hall, wistfully. 'I should have recommended longer lower-masts altogether, Lord Frederick, and a thorough overhaul, I may say, from the combings upwards!' 'I would not have her hull touched for the world, Mr Hall!' said the captain; ''tis too——excessively provoking, at least! But pass the bottles to Mr Collins, if you please.' I had taken a chair, and quietly filled my glass, wondering what could be the matter, when his lordship turned to me and said, 'Do you know, Mr Collins, this schooner of ours is likely to be laid up in Chancery, heaven knows how long. The Admiralty Court ashore are doubtful of condemning her, apparently, and she must either be sent home or to Monte Video, or somewhere, where the master of her claims to belong!' 'Indeed, my lord,' said I, setting down my glass, 'that is curious.' 'Curious, indeed, sir!' replied he, biting his lips, 'though, after all, we really can scarce say what she is to be condemned for—only in the meantime I sail to-morrow for India.' 'She's French to the backbone, that I'll swear, Lord Frederick!' I said; 'and what's more, she was——' 'Ah,' broke in the captain, 'I know, I know; but the less we say of that, in present circumstances, the better! Once get her entangled with politics, and we may give her up altogether.' Lord Frederick twisted his eyeglass round his forefinger faster than before, still watching the schooner; the first lieutenant held up his claret betwixt himself and the light, and I sipped mine. 'I tell you what, gentlemen,' exclaimed his lordship, suddenly, 'I must have that schooner at any cost!—What is to be done, Mr Hall?' 'She'd be of great service in the China seas, my lord, certainly,' said the first lieutenant, looking thoughtfully into his empty glass; 'a perfect treasure for light service, especially if new sparred and——' I noticed Lord Frederick glancing sideways at me, as I thought, with a slight gleam in his eye; and accordingly I suggested that he might buy her from the Frenchman himself; a very poor idea, no doubt, as both the captain and first luff seemed to think, and we all three kept eyeing her doubtfully through the port, without a word.

"At this time the schooner's counter had been slowly sheering towards the frigate's beam, owing to the ebb-tide, and her holding only by a single cable, till her stern began to show right opposite the cabin, I should say not twenty feet off. Lord Frederick put his glass to his eye, and was peering through it, when he remarked that they had brought up rather too near, leaving scarce room for the schooner to swing as she did, earlier than we, so that she would be in danger in getting foul of the frigate's cables. 'The worst of it is, Lord Frederick,' said I, 'that in case of a gale from seaward here, she might have to slip and run upon very short warning, whereas the Hebe has plenty of ground-tackle to let her ride it out. Considering it was Table Bay, at this season, he ought to have kept her a clearer berth for herself, or else have gone well outside!' 'Ah!' said Lord Frederick quickly, meeting my eye for half-a-minute, till the gleam came into his again; and somehow or other mine must have caught it, though I must say the notion that struck me then all at once wasn't in my head before. 'Do you know, that's well thought of, Collins!' said his lordship. 'You've weathered the Cape before, by-the-by?' 'A dozen times, Lord Frederick,' said I; when a regularly jovial roar of laughter broke fair through the port into the cabin from the schooner's taffrail, as she sheered end-on to the frigate's quarter, and Lord Frederick leant forward with the glass screwed into his right eye to see along their decks, which were covered aft with an awning like the open gable of a tent at a fair. 'Singular!' said he; 'by the Lord Harry, who or what can that be Mr Hammond has got there?' Dangling over the French schooner's taffrail were to be seen the soles of two immense boots, with calves and knees to match, and a pair of tightish striped trousers worked up more than halfway, till you saw the tops of the stockings; just beyond the knees was the face leaning back in the shade of the awning and a straw hat together, out of which a huge green cabbage-leaf hung like a flap over one eye, while the other kept gazing in a half-closed sleepy sort of way at the sky, and the red end of a cigar winked and glowed in the midst of the puffs of smoke lower down. The first lieutenant started up shocked at the sight, the noble captain of the Hebe sat with his eyeglass fixed, between amusement and wonder; for my own part, when the voice of this same prodigy broke all of a sudden on us out of the awning, in a mixture of stuttering, hiccuping, Yankee drawling, and puffs at the cigar, 'twas all I could do to hold on, with the knowledge of where I was. 'Wall now, general,' said the American, as if he were talking to someone aloft or in the sky, 'ye-you're qui-quite wrong—I ki-kick-calc'late I've fit a deal more be-be-battles than you have—I re-respect you, Ge-Ge-General Washington; but I ho-ho-hope you know who—hic—who I am!' Here Mr Daniel Snout, who was in a state of beastly intoxication, swayed himself up bodily into the schooner's taffrail, and sat with his arms folded, his long legs swinging over the stern, and his head trying to keep steady, as he scowled solemnly aloft over the frigate's mizzenroyal-mast-head; while the third lieutenant, Mr Hammond, and the master's mate he had aboard with him, could be heard laughing at his back, as if they had gone mad—Hammond being a wild sprig of an Irishman, who would go any length for a piece of fun.

"Just then the American's one eye lighted on the side of the frigate, till it settled lazily on the port of the captain's cabin: first he seemed to notice Lord Frederick Bury, and then myself, the first lieutenant having just recovered himself enough to rush toward the door to get on deck. Daniel himself surveyed me scornfully for a moment, then with a sort of doubtful frown, and a gravity that passes me to describe, unless by the look of an old cock a-drinking—evidently trying to recollect me. 'Hallo, mister!' shouted he suddenly, 'you haven't touched those notions of mine, I hope.' With that he made a spring off where he sat, as if to come towards us—no doubt thinking of the Seringapatam, and the valuables he had left aboard, without seeing the water between; and a pretty deep dive Mr Snout would have made of it, into an ebb-tide that would have swept him under the frigate's bottom, if Mr Hammond and the midshipman hadn't both sprung forward in time to catch him by the neck of the coat. There, accordingly, was the Yankee hanging like a spread eagle over the schooner's taffrail, yelling and turning round at the same time like a fowl on a spit—the third lieutenant's and the mate's faces two pictures of dismay, as they held on, at finding for the first time where the schooner had shied them round to, with their two pairs of eyes fair in front of the captain's eyeglass—while Mr Hall was singing out like thunder from the deck above us, 'The schooner ahoy!—d'ye see where you've got to, sir? Haul ahead on that cable, d'ye hear, you lubbers, and keep clear of the ship!'

"'Mr Collins,' said his lordship quietly to me, as soon as he could keep his countenance, and looking the sterner for the trouble he was put to in doing it, 'you will get your things and go aboard the schooner directly—take her in charge, sir, and send Mr Hammond back here.' 'Very well, my lord,' said I, waiting in the doorway for something more, which, from something in Lord Frederick's look, I had reason to expect, knowing it of old. 'I can only spare you a dozen of the men she has,' added he; 'but if you choose, you can send ashore at once to pick up a few makeshifts, or anything you find!' 'Ay, ay, my lord,' said I; 'the best hand for that would be Mr Snelling, if I may take him, Lord Frederick?' 'Oh, certainly,' was the answer; 'and harkye, Collins, you had better shift your berth a few cable-lengths farther off, or more, if you please.' 'One thing, my lord,' said I, stooping down to see through the port, 'I don't much like the heavy ground-swell that begins to meet the ebb, and I fancy it won't be long ere Table Mountain spreads its supper-cloth—in which case I'd consider it necessary to slip cable and run out at once, though I mightn't get in again so easily. Am I to find the frigate here again, Lord Frederick?'

'Deuce take it, man—no!' said his lordship. He turned his back to hide the evident twinkle of his eye. 'Should we part company, of course you make for the Bay of Bengal! You can't be sure of the Hebe, short of the Sandheads—and if not there, then opposite Fort William, at Calcutta.' 'Very good, my lord,' said I, and had made my bow to go on deck, when Lord Frederick called me back. 'By-the-by,' said he hastily, 'about that Indiaman of yours, Collins—she is here no doubt?' 'No, Lord Frederick,' answered I, 'I believe she sailed a week ago.' 'Dear me, the deuce!' exclaimed he; 'why, I meant to have sent to-morrow to have your friend Westwood arrested and brought aboard!' I started at this, on which his lordship explained that if Westwood got to Bombay, whither the Seringapatam was bound, the authorities there would have news of the thing by this time, and could send him overland at once to England, which would be far worse for him than being carried to Calcutta, where his uncle the Councillor's interest might do something for him. 'The best thing you can do, Collins,' added Lord Frederick, 'if you are obliged to run out to sea, is to look after that Indiaman! With such a neat thing of a sea-boat under you, you might do anything you please; so cruise to windward or leeward in chase, find her out and take out Westwood bodily—lose him afterwards in the Hoogley, if you like—carry away those old spars of hers, and send up new ones—only don't lose the schooner, I beg; so good-bye to you, my dear fellow, lest we should not meet on this side the line again!' 'Good-bye, my lord!' said I cheerfully, and hurried on deck, understanding all he wanted as well as if I'd been ordered to set her jib that moment and heave up anchor. In ten minutes I was over the frigate's side, and in ten more Hammond was back in her, with the men who were to leave; while I sent my baggage below, set the hands to work shifting the schooner's berth, and by sundown we were lying beyond hail of the ship, opposite the custom-house, and a long line of a main street in Cape Town, where we could see the people, the carriages, and the Dutch bullock-carts passing up and down; while Table Mountain hove away up off the steep Devil's Hill and the Lion's Rump, to the long level line a-top as blue and bare as an iron monument, and throwing a shadow to the right over the peaks near at hand.

"Our friend from the United States being by this time in quite an oblivious condition, the first thing I did was to have him put quietly into the boat with which Mr Snelling was to go ashore for fresh hands, and I instructed the reefer to get clear of him anyhow he liked, if it was only above tide-mark. When they were gone I walked the schooner's little quarter-deck in the dusk by myself, till the half-moon rose with a ghostly copper-like glare over the hollow in the Lion's Rump, streaking across the high face of Table Mountain, and bringing out all its rifts and wrinkles again. The land-breeze began to blow steadily with a long sighing sweep from the north-east, meeting the heavy swell that set into the broad bay; and the schooner, being a light crank little craft, got rather uneasy; whereas you could see the lights of the frigate heaving and settling leisurely, less than half-a-mile off. I had only six or seven good hands aboard altogether at the time, which, with those the midshipman had, were barely sufficient to work her in such seas; so with all I had to do, with the difficulty of getting men in the circumstances, a long voyage before us, and things that might turn up, as I hoped, to require a touch of the regular service, why the very pleasure of having a command made me a good deal anxious. Even of that I didn't feel sure; and I kept watching Table Mountain, eager for the least bit of haze to come across the top of it, as well as sorry I had sent Snelling ashore. 'I'd give a hundred pounds at this moment,' thought I, 'to have had Bob Jacobs here!'

"As the moon got higher, I could see the swell washing up between the different merchantmen in sight, into their shadows, and heavy enough some of them seemed to roll round their cables, betwixt a breeze and a swell running the contrary ways; first one let go a second anchor, and then another, to help their heads shoreward; but still there was no danger, as things went. It wasn't long before I made out two boats coming from toward the town, round the stern of one of the ships, the frigate lying betwixt her and us, so that they took her by the way, and a good deal of hailing seemed to pass between them. I could even see epaulets glisten over the Hebe's quarter, as if there was a stir made aboard; after which the boats were plainly pulling for the schooner. What all this might mean I couldn't very well conceive, unless it were either Snelling come back already, or else some hands Lord Frederick himself had provided before this, as I saw both boats were full of people. 'Forward there!' I sung out, 'hail those boats.' 'Ay, ay, the schooner ahoy!' was the answer in a sharp voice from the headmost of them, 'from the shore—all right! Stand by to heave us a line, will ye?' Next came a hail from Snelling, in our own gig; so I at once gave orders to heave them a rope and have both boats brought under the gangway, naturally supposing the sharp little fellow had come some marvellous good speed in shipping hands. As soon as he jumped on deck, I accordingly inquired how many men he had brought, when to my great surprise he informed me there was only one, 'a scuffy sort of a swab,' as he expressed it, 'who would do for cook!' 'The devil he will! you young rascal,' I broke out.

"'Hush, sir, for heaven's sake,' said he, making some extraordinary sign, which I didn't understand; 'it'll all be right in the end, Mr Collins. Now then, sir,' to someone in the boat alongside, as he carefully handed him the accommodation-ropes, 'here you are—hold on, sir—so-o!' This was a rather youngish fellow in a huge pilot-coat and a glazed cap, with some kind of uniform inside, and a large breastpin in his shirt, who handed me a paper the moment he stood firm on deck, without speaking a word; though, by the light of the deck-lantern, I didn't much like the look of his foxy sort of face, with the whiskers on it coming forward from both cheeks to his mouth, nor the glance he gave round the schooner with his pair of quick sharp little eyes. 'Much more like a custom-house officer than a cook!' thought I, 'unless we mean to have a French one'; but what was my astonishment, on opening the paper, to find him called 'Gilbert Webb, harbour master's assistant, hereby authorised by the Admiralty Court, sitting in Cape Town, to take charge of the doubtful vessel described in her papers as the Ludovico, belonging to Monte Video—from the officer commanding the prize crew of his Brittanic Majesty's ship Hebe.' My first thought was to have Mr Gilbert Webb pitched over into his boat again, when Lord Frederick's own signature met my eye at the bottom of the paper, addressed below to 'Lieutenant Collins of His Majesty's schooner Aniceta at sea.'

"A wonderfully mysterious squint from Snelling, behind the officer, was sufficient to clinch the matter in my own mind, showing that the reefer was as sharp as a needle; and I handed back the document to the harbour gentleman, with a 'Very well, sir, that will do.' 'I suppose I'd better have my men up, Lieutenant Collins?' said he, with a quick pert kind of accent, which made me set him down at once for a Londoner, while at the same time he seemed impatient, as I thought, to get the management. 'Why, sir,' said I, 'I suppose you had.'

"Hereupon up mounted four or five decent enough looking stevedores 24 —one or two of whom had rather the air of sailors, the rest being broad-beamed, short-legged Dutchmen, with trousers like pillow-slips—followed by a whole string of fourteen or fifteen Indian Lascars, their bundles in their hands, and an ugly old serdug at their head; while a lame, broken-down, debauched-like fellow of a man-o'-war's-man, that Snelling had found sitting on a timberhead ashore, got aboard with our own boat's crew. Our gangway was choke-full, to my fresh dismay, for, to get rid of such a tagrag-and-bobtail, in case of running to sea, was impossible; even if they weren't odds against us, here was it likely to get a thick night, the swell growing under the schooner till she began to jerk at her anchor, head to wind, like a young filly at a manger; so that dropping them back into their boat when needful, as I intended at first, was out of the question for the present. I found from the harbour officer that the number of hands would all be required with the morning tide, when his orders were to have the schooner towed in opposite the Battery Dock, especially as there was much chance of the wind blowing strong from seaward next day. The swell on the water, he said, was such that, after putting off, he thought of going back again till the tide began to turn; if he had not been encouraged to stick to it and keep on by the midshipman, whom he fell in with near the quay. This piece of news was the finish to the rage I felt brewing in me, vexed as I naturally was to give up the notion of a free cruise, in command of a craft like the schooner; and as soon as Mr Webb was comfortable in the cabin, over a tumbler of stiff grog and some cold beef, I sent for Snelling to my own cupboard of a state-room.

"'You cursed unlucky little imp, you!' I burst out, the moment he made his appearance, 'what's the meaning of this, sirrah, eh?' 'What is it, if you please, sir?' said Snelling, pretending to hold down his shock-head like a frightened schoolboy, and looking up all the time both at me and the lamp at once, while he swayed with the uneasy heave of the deck in such a way as made me grip him by the arm in a perfect fury, fancying he had got drunk ashore. 'You young blackguard, you!' said I, shaking him, 'didn't I tell you to get hands—didn't you know I meant to—to——' 'Oh yes, Mr Collins,' gasped the reefer, 'I did indeed—you meant to cut and run—I saw it by your eye, sir, and—don't shake me any more, sir, or you'll spoil my hair—and I don't deserve it—it's—all right!' And on my letting him go, the ugly little scamp sunk down on a chair with his eyes starting from his head, and a leer like a perfect demon incarnate: but so perfectly laughable it was, not to mention the air of complete confidence between us that he threw into it, that I sat down myself, ready to grin at my bad luck. 'Well, Mister Snelling,' said I quietly, 'you are a touch beyond me! Let's have the joke, at least—out with it, man, else another shake may be——'

"The reefer pointed with his thumb over his shoulder to the cabin, shoved his chin forward, and whispered, 'Why, sir, I'm only doubtful whether you could make him third officer—but at any rate, he'll always be useful at a rope, Mr Collins—won't he, sir?' I gave Snelling one look, meant to be as grave as an Old Bailey chaplain's, but it wouldn't do—my conscience wouldn't stand it—in fact the very self-same notion seemed to me to have been creeping into my mind. 'You—young—rascal!' was all I could manage to say, before making bolt to go on deck. 'By-the-by, Mister Snelling,' said I, turning and looking down from the hatchway, 'you must want a glass of grog—tell the boy to let you have some—and go and keep the officer company, sir.'

"By this time it was raining hard, the half-moon coming out at moments and shining through it with a sudden sharp gleam, in some gust of the wind off the land—showing the swell in as far as the wet white custom-house and the bare quays, the ships with their hazy lights all hither and thither, while Table Mountain was to be seen now and then peering half over the mist, first one corner and then another, of a colour like dead ashes. One time I looked down toward the dusky little cabin, where the midshipman, quite in his element, was sitting with the harbour officer, the lamp jerking and making wild swings betwixt them, while Snelling evidently egged on his companion to drink; then I gave a glance seaward, where there was nothing but a glimmer of rain and spray along the dark hollows of the water.

"I couldn't make up my mind, all I could do—it was too barefaced a thing to slip from the roadstead with a breeze blowing off-shore; but the worst of it was, that I didn't feel easy at the idea of parting with an anchor in the circumstances, not to say carrying off the Government people, unless forced to it. I accordingly went below to mix myself a stiffener, and found the officer a cool head, for, in spite of all Snelling could do, the reefer himself had got provoked, whereas the sharp Mr Webb was only a little brisker than before. 'A rough sort of night,' said I, nodding to him, as I knocked the water out of my cap. 'Well, it seems,' said he, free and easy. 'S'pose I go on deck then, gentlemen—I've refreshed, I assure you, so you needn't trouble about this 'ere schooner no farther—glad to get quit of it and turn in, I desay lieutenant?' 'No trouble in the world, Mr Webb,' said I, going on with my mixture, 'far from it; but sit down a minute, pray, sir—Mr Snelling here will take charge of the deck for us in the meantime'; and Snelling vanished at once, Mr Webb apparently flattered at my wishing his company. 'Will that cable of yours hold, think ye, Lieutenant Collins?' asked he, filling up another glass. 'Why,' said I, almost laughing, 'to tell you the truth, I begin to feel rather doubtful of it.' 'What!' broke out the harbour officer, starting up, 'then I must 'ave another put down immediately: why, what's the effect, sir—we'll be carried out to sea!' 'You said it exactly, Mr Webb,' I said: ''twould have been much worse, I suppose, if we were driven ashore, though! Now look you, if I were to let go a second anchor at present, I couldn't light upon a better plan either to break her back or lose both anchors in the end, from the difference of strain on the two cables with this ground-swell. The fact is, my good fellow, you're evidently not fit to take charge at present.'

"'What, lieutenant!' said he, looking fierce and foolish at the same time, 'here's strange lang'age to a Gov'ment officer, sir; I hask the meanin' of it at once, mister!' 'But I depend a good deal on your knowledge of Table Bay weather,' I continued, leaning back with my weather eye screwed to bear upon him. 'D'ye think this wind likely to moderate soon, sir? come now.' 'No,' replied he sulkily, 'I'm sure it won't; and to-morrow it's certain to blow back ten times worse.' 'Then, Mr Webb,' said I, rising, 'you oughtn't to have come aboard to-night; as the short and the long of it is, I shall get the schooner an offing the first possible moment!' The officer stared at me in a bewildered manner; and as for the schooner, she seemed to be bolting and pitching in a way worse than before, with now and then a plunge of the swell on her broadside, as if she had been under weigh. Suddenly Snelling lifted the skylight-frame and screamed down into the cabin: 'Mr Collins, Mr Collins! she's been dragging her anchor for the last ten minutes, sir!'

"I sprang on deck at two bounds; the schooner had somehow or other got her anchor out of hold at the time, with the cable as taut as a fiddle-string. It was quite dark aloft, and not a vestige of Table Mountain to be seen, though the moonshine, low down to westward, brought out two or three tracks of light along the stretch of water, and you saw the lights in the ships slowly sweeping past. Where we happened to be, it blew two ways at once, as is often the case in Table Bay, round the bluffs of the mountain, and as soon as she brought up again with a surge at the windlass, the heave of a long swell took her right on the quarter, lifting her in to her anchor again with a slack of the hawser, at which every second man sung out to 'hold on!' Over she went to port, a sea washing up the starboard side, and throwing a few dozen bucketfuls at once fair into the companion, where our friend the harbour officer was sticking at the time; so down plumped Mr Webb along with it, and the booby hatch was shoved close after him, while the poor devils of Lascars were huddled together as wet as swabs in the lee of the caboose forward. 'A hand to the wheel!' shouted I, as soon as I recovered myself; when to my great surprise I saw Snelling's new hand, poor creature as I'd thought him, standing with a spoke in each fist, as cool and steady as possible, and his eye fixed on me in the true knowing way which I felt could be trusted to. 'Jib there!' I sung out, 'see all clear to run up a few hanks of the jib—stand by to cut the cable at the bitts!' 'Ay, ay, sir,' answered Snelling, who was working away with the harbour men, his bare head soaked, and altogether more like an imp than a young gentleman of the navy—'all's clear, sir.'

"Five minutes I daresay we stood, everyone in the same position, while I waited for a good moment in the run of the swell looking into the binnacle; till she hung slack, as it were, in a wide seething trough of the sea, when I signed to the man behind me to put the helm gradually to starboard. I glanced at the fellow again, caught his sharp weatherly eye once more—then putting both hands to my mouth I sung out to bowse on the jib-halliards. 'Now—cut—the cable!' shouted I, springing forward in my anxiety.

"The schooner rose away from her anchor on the heavy roll of the sea; I saw two quick strokes of the axe on the instant, and she was spinning head off from the wind, heeling over betwixt the force of it and the ground-swell together, while the mass of black water was washing bodily away with us; the new helmsman showing down below me he as leant to the wheel, like somebody at the foot of a slide. If he had'nt helped her at the moment with a back turn of the spokes to port, 'twould have been all up with us. As it was, the schooner fell off gallantly in his hands, with a sliding surge into the lee of the next swell, that buried her sharp bows in the green sea till it foamed about our very shoulders as we hung on like grim death to the weather bulwark. She was just shaking herself free, and rising like a buoy over the broad tops of the waves, when Snelling, myself, and two or three of the men staggered down to her mainmast to swing up the throat-halliards, letting her feel a little of the boom mainsail; and we had scarce belayed, as the last glimpse of the frigate's lights was caught astern of us, heaving and setting, as she rode with her two bower anchors down; we had driven past close enough to have heard the creak of her hamper aloft. After that I had the fore-staysail set on her, then the reefed mainsail, and the lively schooner yielded to the long rolling seas so well, as very soon to make her own weather of it, especially since—clear of the high land about Table Bay—it was blowing only a strong breeze; and the more I began to feel master of her, the more inclined I was to let her show her good qualities.

"Such a craft I never had had the full management of before in my life; and you may easily fancy how I felt at dividing the hands into the two watches, giving little Snelling command of one, as first mate, and picking out our men in turn. I looked round amongst mine, rather at a loss for one to make a second mate for the cruise, though there were three prime enough man-o'-war's-men, and I had chosen one of the Government officer's gang for his activity. As for the Lascars, we slumped in half of the number to each of us, for make-weights—when Snelling's fresh hand, who had fallen to my share, caught my eye again as he stood at the wheel. Every half-spoke he gave the schooner told; she was topping the heavy seas as they rose, and taking them just where they melted one to the other, with a long floating cleave that carried her counter fairly free of the after-run, though nearly right before the wind: the main-boom had been guyed over to the lee-quarter, till a third of the sail hung clear of her hull, and the breeze swept into the hollow of it, thick with spray. The light from the little binnacle shone up distinctly on the man's face, and with all the desperate, used-up, marbled sort of look of it, like one getting the better of a long spree ashore, I thought there was something uncommonly promising about him, not to say greatly above the run of foremast men. The wet, the wind, and the work he was at took off the seediness of his clothes; even the old rag of a handkerchief round his hairy neck had got a gloss to it, and he stood handling the wheel with a strange mixture of recklessness and care, as he glanced from the compass to the gaff of the mainsail against the scud, and down again.

"The very contrast between the man's manner and his outward rig was sufficient to strike one, though plenty of seamen are to be found in the like state ashore; but what fixed me to him above all was the expression in those two keen, searching, living eyes of his, when they once or twice met mine on their way from aloft to the compass-boxes. 'Twas as if they'd woke up since he came aboard out of a sleepy, maudlin condition, with the 'blue-devils,' or scarce fully out of 'em; like a sick man's in the lull of a fever, suddenly seen watching you out of the dusk of the bed, when one happens to glance up from the nurse's seat.

"'What's your name, my man?' asked I, stepping aft to the binnacle. 'My name is Jones, sir,' said he readily. 'And your first name?' I said. 'Jack,' was the answer in an offhand way, with a hitch of one shoulder, and a weather-spoke to the wheel; spoken in an accent you'd have expected more in a West-End drawing-room than from a common sailor. 'Ah,' said I sharply. 'Jack Jones? I wonder how many Jack Joneses there are afloat! An able seaman, I think, Jones?' 'Why, sir,' replied the man, 'I never rate myself, sir—'tis all one to me, able, ordinary, landsman, or boy—I carry no papers, and leave my betters to rate me.' 'Where were you last, my man?' I asked; whereupon I met such a cool, steady, deep look out of the fellow's strange light-coloured eyes, bloodshot as they were with drinking, that I felt almost our very two souls jostle in it; as much as to say: To all eternity fathom me if you can! 'Well, I forget where, sir,' said he, lowering his look to the compass-box again; 'always the way with me after a trip, a cruise, a voyage, or whatever it may be. I've got—ha!' and he yielded his body coolly to a jerk of the schooner's wheel. 'A sweet craft this, sir, but a little ticklish!' 'You've got what?' said I, not unwilling to wear out the time. 'I've got—no memory!'

"Still there was somewhat so gloomy and mournful in the next glance aloft, I don't know how it was, but I felt inclined to offer him a mate's place on trial, and so I hinted, if he knew half as well how to handle a craft as he did of steering her. To my own surprise, Jones's wonder didn't seem to be roused at the notion, except that he gave me another quick glance, from head to foot, with a queer smile that struck me as if I were being questioned, instead of him; then he looked down over his own outfit, judging by which you'd have said he'd been shipwrecked. 'Well,' said I, 'I daresay you've been hard put to it, somehow, Jones—so as soon as you leave the wheel, you can go below to the steward, and get a seagoing suit of my own, till we see Calcutta, when your mate's wages will set you all right again.' The man touched his battered old straw hat; but I noticed his eyes gleam for a moment by the binnacle light, and a strange twitch run round his mouth at the mention of the mate's wages, the only way I could account for it at the time being his late hard-up condition; and nothing to my mind was more deucedly pitiable than to see the thought of a few paltry additional rupees light up a head like that, with the glistening sort of expression of a miser as I fancied.

"The man had a head on him, in fact, when you eyed him, fit for a gentleman's shoulders, or more—his hair and his whiskers curly and dark, draggled though they were with the rain, not to say Cape Town mud—while the wearing away of the hair about the temples, and the red grog-streaks in the veins of his face, made him, no doubt, a dozen years older to appearance than he was. For my part I was quite convinced already, this same Jack Jones hadn't been sent out a cabin boy; there was not only a touch of high blood in him at bottom, but I'd have sworn he had been some time or other in the place of a gentleman, afloat or ashore, though plainly now 'going to the devil.'

"Meanwhile the breaking look of the clouds away on our larboard bow showed it wasn't far off dawn; so, sending another hand to the wheel, and finding a snug spot under a stern-grating for a snooze on deck, I told Jones to begin with taking charge of the deck for me. 'One thing, sir,' said he, touching his hat again, as I lay down, 'I've only shipped for the outward voyage, and leave at the first port.' 'Why, what!' said I, lifting my head; 'what do you mean to do there, eh?' 'I—I want to go ashore,' answered he, eagerly; 'ay, if we're years on the cruise, so much the better, sir, but so soon as she drops anchor off Calcutta, I'm my own master?' 'Have your own way, then,' said I; 'at any rate I'll try you in the meantime—so Mister Jones, let's see how you mind the schooner till eight bells!' Whereupon I turned myself over to sleep, and it was as broad daylight as we had any likelihood of about the Cape, when I woke.