Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 68, No. 417, July, 1850
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 some one 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 Britannic 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 stevedores7– 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 the lame, broken-down, debauched-like fellow of a man-o'-warsman, that Snelling had found sitting on a timberhead ashore, got aboard with our own boat's crew. Our gangway was chokeful, 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 yerk 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 devilish 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." "D – n me, 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' off 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, 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 dare say we stood, every one 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 as he leant to the wheel, like somebody at the foot of a slide. If he hadn't helped her at the moment with a back turn of the spokes to port, t'would 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 swig 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-stay-sail 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 second mate for the cruise, though there were three prime enough man-o'-warsmen, 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 off-hand 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 ye 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 the deuce!" 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.
It still blew a stiff breeze, but the waves rose with a length and a breadth in them you find in no other sea; deep-blue sparkling hills of water, with green gleams about the crests, of which every single wave had a hundred or so; and a long seething, simmering, glassy hollow of a still valley between, where the flecks of foam slid away glittering out of the shadow. But, Lord! it was glorious to feel the schooner rising quietly in the trough, with the mount of a wave, to the very ridge of it; then with a creak of all her timbers and bulk-heads below, a slight shake to windward, and a yerk at her bows, lean over to leeward again and go hissing through the breast of a huge sea, till you thought she'd go down into it; while there she was, however, lifting head up, with a swift flash of her cutwater, on the cross half wave that joined every first and third one – "billow" and "sea," as you may say. The breeze having drawn more easterly toward morning, Jones had braced her more upon a wind, with reefed main and foresails, and fore-staysail set, which brought out the Aniceta's weatherly qualities to a marvel; as notwithstanding almost a head-wind and a swelling sea, she went nearly as fast as the frigate would have done before the breeze, and not a sign of the land was to be seen from her crosstrees.
It was not till the afternoon, when the midshipman and I had both been busy together seeing various things done about the rigging, as well as having preventer-braces and guys clapped on the booms and gaffs, that we had time to look about us; the schooner still driving along with the breeze strong abeam, and a floating plunge from one wide dark-blue sea to another, as if they handed her onward. Jones had got himself made decent below, as I told him, till what with different clothes and a shave together, besides refreshment from sea weather, he was quite a different man to look at. Even Snelling owned to his sailor-like appearance, though rather surprised at my notion of making him a mate; while as for the men, they didn't know but he had come aboard as such, and to tell the truth, he was having the mainstaysail got up and ready to bend at the time, like one accustomed to give orders. By this time I remembered the harbour officer, Webb, whom we'd carried off so unceremoniously, and found he was still in his "bunk" below, half sulky and half sick, consoling himself with brandy and water till we should get into Table Bay again, as he said. "Only put him into my watch, Mr Collins," said Snelling gravely, "and I'll work him up, sir." The reefer himself, in fact, had all of a sudden turned out in a laughably dignified style, to meet his new post – in full midshipman's rig, dirk and all, with his cocked hat, which I sent him down immediately to change; but he had brushed up his mop of hair, and begun to cultivate the down on his upper lip; while being a deep-shouldered, square-built, short-armed little fellow, as muscular as a monkey, you'd have thought from the back of his coat he was a man cut shorter, and for his face, he had contrived to put such a sour effect into it – meant for great experience, no doubt – that it was only by his eyes one saw he was a boy of sixteen or so; and they were brimful of wild glee, as he jumped about wherever he was needed, doing the work of a couple of ordinary men, and actually delighted when a spray came over the weather bulwarks on top of him, seeing that, instead of the frigate, she was "our schooner" that did it.
"I think she walks, Mr Collins!" observed Snelling, holding up his head stiffly, and looking aloft as we went aft, after shaking ourselves from one of these same sprays. "No denying that, Mr Snelling," said I as gravely; "I only wish your fond parents could see you just now, first mate of such a smart craft, Mister Snelling!" His father was a country baronet, who had sent him off to sea with an allowance – I daresay because his looks were no ornament, and there were plenty more coming; though Snelling always pretended his worthy progenitor was an old man. "Fond be blowed!" said he, starting; "I just see him at this moment at the foot of that blessed old mahogany, proposing my health before the ladies go, and – " Here the schooner rose on a sharp, short wave, making a plunge through it that sent the helmsman swinging to the lee-side of the wheel, while a sea washed up over her forecastle, and away aft with the tubs, buckets, and spars, knocking everybody right and left. Snelling and I held on by the weather main-rigging with our feet in a bath, till she lifted bodily through it, careering to her lee-gunnel. "By George, though!" broke out the reefer, smacking his lips as we drew breath, "I wish he did see me – wouldn't it cheer his declining years, when I'd got to hand the governor carefully below! And such a rough night as we're going to have of it, too, sir!" "You unfilial young dog!" said I; "but so I'm afraid we shall – and no joke either!" Jones was standing near us, watching the looks of the weather with evident uneasiness, and I asked him what he thought of it. "In my opinion, sir," said he, "you'll have some pretty sudden shift of wind ere long, of a kind I have seen more than once off the Cape before – and that as furious as a south-easter ordinarily is hereabouts. Look away yonder, sir!"
It had got to a clear, dry, north-easterly gale, that shook our canvass every time she lifted, singing through the ropes, and bitter cold. Long and heavy as the roll of the sea was, the sky was as keen and clear as glass all round about and aloft, save the mist kicked up by the spray off a wave here and there. If a rag of white cloud appeared, it was blown away, and you saw the black wrinkled side of one wave at a time, a mile wide, you'd have said, freckled all over with spots of foam, and its ridge heaving against the eye of the blast. The waves had begun to break shorter. The schooner, buoyant as she was, and sharp as a dolphin, pitched and rolled at times like mad, and the men forward were standing by to let go the fore-halliards, throat and peak, to ease her a little: when Jones pointed out the bank of gray cloud ahead of us, scarce to be seen through the troughs of the water, except when she lifted well upon a swell of sea. The sun going down in a wild red glare to leeward of us, threw a terrible glitter across the huge slant of one single wave that rose stretching away far and wide from her very bow, then brought out the sulky wrinkled blue in it; the hissing green crests curled over to the very sunset, as it were, while we sunk slowly into the long dark lulling trough, and saw the broken shaft of a rainbow stand glimmering for a moment or two into a black hollow right ahead, when the gale drove it back upon us like an arrow, as the schooner urged through the breast of the next wave. I looked from Snelling to the new mate, who still held on by a belaying-pin and watched the clouds, giving me back a glance that showed he thought the matter more serious than ordinary. "The sooner we strip her to the storm-staysails," said I quickly, as we fell into the trough again, "the better, I think. If it blows harder, we must lie-to with her at once." My eye was anxiously fixed on Jones, for large as the schooner was, between two and three hundred tons, yet no craft in the world is so nice to bring to the wind in a gale, with a heavy sea running. Scudding before it might have done for the frigate, with her full bows, and spars high enough to keep her main-topsail full in spite of the troughs; but even that would have taken us out of our course after the Indiaman. Besides that, to tell the truth, I didn't sufficiently understand fore-and-aft rigged craft in all weathers yet, to be quite sure of what I did at a pinch like the present. "Yes, yes, sir," answered he; "but if you'll take an older man's advice, before that you'll wear her round on the other tack to it. We've the worst to come, or else I'm mistaken, sir." – "You're accustomed to schooners?" asked I firmly, and gazing him in the face. I saw his lips open in the sweep of the wind through our after-rigging, and he made a sign with his hand, while a gnawing sort of spasm, as it were, shot through the muscles of his jaw, and for a moment he gave me a devilishly fierce, keen glance, almost a glare, from under his strong straight eyebrows – then turned away. "Take the trumpet then, Mr Jones," said I, singing out into his ear; "I'll leave her to you, sir. Mr Snelling, let's see the hatches all fast!" And we scrambled along by the belaying-pins.