“Oh, thank you, Mr Jerry; I had forgotten them,” said Captain M — , descending the side, and shoving off.

  “Whose clothes are these hanging on the davit-guys?” said Mr Bully, who had given order that no clothes were to be drying after eight o’clock in the morning.

  “I believe that they are Mr Prose’s, sir, though I am not sure,” answered Jerry, who knew very well that they were not, but wished that Prose should be sent for.

  “Quarter-master, tell Mr Prose to come up to me directly.” Jerry immediately ran down to the berth.

  “Well, now, Jerry, this is too bad, I do declare. Come, take it off again, that’s a good fellow.”

  “Mr Prose,” said the quarter-master, “the first-lieutenant wants you on deck directly.”

  “There now, Jerry, what a mess I might have been in! Where’s the key?”

  “I have not got it,” replied Jerry; “the captain saw me on the quarter-deck, and took the bunch of keys away with him.”

  “What! is the captain gone away? I do declare, — now, this is too bad,” cried Prose, in a rage.

  “Too bad! — why, man, don’t be angry — it’s a distinction. Between me and the first-lieutenant, you are created a knight of the Grand Cross. I gave you the collar, and he has given you the order, which I recommend you to comply with, without you wish further elevation to the mast-head.”

  “Mr Prose, the first-lieutenant wants you, immediately,” said the quarter-master, who had been despatched to him again.

  “Why, how can I go up with a dog’s collar round my neck?”

  “I’m sorry, very sorry indeed, Prose. Never mind — say it was me.”

  “Say it was you! Why, so it was you. I’d better say that I’m sick.”

  “Yes, that will do. What shall your complaint be? — a lockjaw? I’ll go up and tell Mr Bully — shall I?”

  “Do — tell him I’m not well.”

  Jerry went up accordingly. “Mr Prose is not well, sir — he has a sort of lock-jaw.”

  “I wish to God you had the same complaint, sir,” replied the first-lieutenant, who owed him one. “Macallan, is Mr Prose ill?”

  “Not that I know of; he has not applied to me. I’ll go down and see him before I go on shore.”

  Macallan came up laughing, but he recovered his seriousness before Bully perceived it.

  “Well, doctor?”

  “Mr Prose is certainly not very fit to come on deck in his present state,” said Macallan, who then descended the side, and the boat, which had been waiting for him, shoved off. But, this time, Jerry was caught in his own trap.

  “Mr J — , where is the dog’s collar? — it must be oiled and cleaned,” said the first-lieutenant.

  “Shall I give it to the armourer, sir?” replied Jerry.

  “No, bring it up to me.”

  Jerry went down, and returned in a few minutes. “I cannot find it, sir; I left it in the berth when I came on deck.”

  “That’s just like your usual carelessness, Mr J — . Now go up to the mast-head, and stay there till I call you down.”

  Jerry, who did not like the turn which the joke had taken, moved up with a very reluctant step — at the rate of about one ratline in ten seconds.

  “Come, sir, what are you about? — start up.”

  “I’m no up-start, sir,” replied Jerry to the first-lieutenant — a sarcasm which hit so hard, that Jerry was not called down till dark; and long after Prose had, by making interest with the captain’s steward, obtained the keys, and released his neck from its enthralment.

  The party in the second boat were landed on the reef, and while the rest were attending to the survey, Macallan was employed in examining the crevices of the rocks, and collecting the different objects of natural history which presented themselves. The boat was sent on board, as it was not required until the afternoon, when the gun-room officers were to return to dinner. The captain’s gig remained on shore, and the coxswain was employed by Macallan in receiving from him the different shells and varieties of coral, with which the rocks were covered.

  “Take particular care of this specimen,” said the surgeon, as he delivered a bunch of corallines into the hands of Marshall, the coxswain.

  “I ax your pardon, Mr Macallan, — but what’s the good of picking up all this rubbish?”

  “Rubbish!” replied the surgeon, laughing— “why you don’t know what it is. What do you think those are which I just gave you?”

  “Why, weeds are rubbish, and these be only pieces of seaweed.”

  “They happen to be animals.”

  “Hanimals!” cried the coxswain, with an incredulous smile; “well, sir, I always took ’em to be weggitables. We live and larn, sure enough. Are cabbage and hingions hanimals too?”

  “No,” replied the surgeon, much amused, “they are not, Marshall; but these are. Now take them to the boat, and put them in a safe place; and then come back.”

  “I say, Bill, look ye here,” said the coxswain to one of the sailors, who was lying down on the thwarts of the boat, holding up the coral to him in a contemptuous manner— “what the hell d’ye think this is? Why, it’s a hanimal!”

  “A what?”

  “I’ll be blow’d if the doctor don’t say it’s a hanimal!”

  “No more a hanimal than I am,” replied the sailor, laying his head down again on the thwarts, and shutting his eyes.

  In a few minutes Marshall returned to the surgeon, who, tired with clambering over the rocks, was sitting down to rest himself a little. “Well, Marshall, I hope you have not hurt what I gave into your charge.”

  “Hurt ‘em! — why, sir, a’ter what you told me, I’d as soon have hurt a cat.”

  “What, you are superstitious on that point, as seamen generally are.”

  “Super-what, Mr Macallan? I only knows, that they who ill-treats a cat, comes worst off. I’ve proof positive of that since I have been in the service. I could spin you a yarn.”

  “Well now, Marshall, pray do. Come, sit down here — I am fond of proof positive. Now, let me hear what you have to say, and I’ll listen without interrupting you.”

  The coxswain took his seat, as Macallan desired, and, taking the quid of tobacco out of his cheek, and laying it down on the rock beside him, commenced as follows: —

  “Well now, d’ye see, Mr Macallan, I’ll just exactly tell you how it was, and then I leaves you to judge whether a cat’s to be sarved in that way. It was when I belonged to the Survellanty frigate, that we were laying in Cawsand Bay, awaiting for sailing orders. We hadn’t dropped the anchor more than a week, and there was no liberty ashore. Well, sir, the purser found out that his steward was a bit of a rascal, and turns him adrift. The ship’s company knew that long afore; for it was not a few that he had cheated, and we were all glad to see him and his traps handed down the side. Now, sir, this here fellow had a black cat — but it warn’t at all like other cats. When it was a kitten, they had cut off his tail close to its starn, and his ears had been shaved off just as close to his figure-head, and the hanimal used to set up on his hind legs and fight like a rabbit. It had quite lost its natur, as it were, and looked, for all the world, like a little imp of darkness. It always lived in the purser’s steward’s room, and we never seed him but when we went down for the biscuit and flour as was sarving out.

  “Well, sir, when this rascal of a steward leaves the ship, he had no natural affection for his cat, and he leaves him on board, belonging to nobody; and the steward as comes in his place turns him out of the steward’s room; so the poor jury-rigged little devil had to take care of itself.

  “We all tried to coax it into one berth or the other, but the poor brute wouldn’t take to nobody. You know, sir, a cat doesn’t like to change so he wandered about the ship, mewing all day, and thieving all night. At last, he takes to the master’s cabin, and makes a dirt there, and the master gets very savage, and swears that he’ll kill him, if ever he comes athwart him.

  “Now, sir, you knows it’s the natur of cats always to make a dirt in the same place, — reason why, God only knows; and so this poor black devil always returns to the master’s cabin, and makes it, as it were, his head-quarters. At last the master, who was as even-tempered an officer as ever I sailed with, finds one day that his sextant case is all of a smudge: so being touched in a sore place, he gets into a great rage, and orders all the boys of the ship to catch the cat; and after much ado, the poor cat was catched, and brought aft into the gun-room. ‘Now, then, P — ,’ said the master to the first-lieutenant, ‘will you help kill the dirty beast?’ — and the first-lieutenant, who cared more about his lower deck being clean than fifty human beings’ lives, said he would; so they called the sargant o’ marines, and orders him to bring up two ship’s muskets and some ball cartridge, and they goes on deck with the cat in their arms.

  “Well, sir, when the men saw the cat brought up on deck, and hears that he was to be hove overboard, they all congregates together upon the lee gangway, and gives their opinions on the subject, — and one says, ‘Let’s go and speak to the first-lieutenant;’ and another says, ‘He’ll put you on the black list;’ and so they don’t do nothing — all except Jenkins, the boatswain’s mate, who calls to a waterman out of the main-deck port, and says, ‘Waterman,’ says he, ‘when they heaves that cat overboard, do you pick him up, and I’ll give you a shilling;’ and the waterman says as how he would, for you see, sir, the men didn’t know that the muskets had been ordered up to shoot the poor beast.

  “Well, sir, the waterman laid off on his oars, and the men, knowing what Jenkins had done, were content. But when the sargant o’ marines comes up, and loads the muskets with ball cartridges, then the men begins to grumble; howsomever, the master throws the cat overboard off the lee-quarter, and the waterman, as soon as he sees her splash in the water, backs astarn to take her into the boat, but the first-lieutenant tells him to get out of the way, if he doesn’t want a bullet through his boat — so he pulls ahead again. The master fires first, and hits the cat a clip on the neck, which turns her half over, and the first-lieutenant fires his musket, and cuts the poor hanimal right in half by the backbone, and she sprawls a bit, and then goes down to the bottom. ‘Capital shots both,’ says the first-lieutenant; ‘he’ll never take an observation of your sextant again, master;’ and they both laughs heartily, and goes down the ladder to get their dinner.

  “Well, sir, I never seed a ship’s company in such a farmant, or such a nitty kicked up ‘tween decks, in my life: it was almost as bad as a mutiny; but they piped to grog soon a’ter, and the men goes to their berths and talks the matter over more coolly, and they all agrees that no good would come to the ship a’ter that, and very melancholy they were, and couldn’t forget it.

  “Well, sir; our sailing orders comes down the next day, and the first cutter is sent on shore for the captain, and six men out of ten leaves the boat, and I’m sure that it warn’t for desartion, but all along of that cat being hove overboard and butchered in that way — for three on ’em were messmates of mine — for you know, sir, we talks them matters over, and if they had had a mind to quit the sarvice, I should have know’d it. The captain was as savage as a bear with a sore head, and did nothing but growl for three days afterwards, and it was well to keep clear on him, for he snapped right and left, like a mad dog. I never seed him in such a humour afore, except once when he had a fortnight’s foul wind.

  “Well, sir, we had been out a week, when we falls in with a large frigate, and beats to quarters. We expected her to be a Frenchman; but as soon as she comes within gunshot, she hoists the private signal, and proves to be the Semiramus, and our senior officer. The next morning, cruising together, we sees a vessel in-shore, and the Semiramus stands in on the larboard tack, and orders us by signal to keep away, and prevent his running along the coast. The vessel, finding that she couldn’t go no way, comes to an anchor under a battery of two guns — and then the commodore makes the signal for boats manned and armed, to cut her out.

  “Well, sir, our first-lieutenant was in his cot, on his beam ends, with the rheumatiz, and couldn’t go on sarvice; so the second and third lieutenants, and master, and one of the midshipmen, had command of our four boats, and the commodore sent seven of his’n. The boats pulled in, and carried the vessel in good style, and there never was a man hurt. As many boats as could clap on her took her in tow, and out she came at the rate of four knots an hour. I was coaxswain of the pinnace, which was under the charge of the master, and we were pulling on board, as all the boats weren’t wanted to tow — and we were about three cables’ length ahead of the vessel, when I sees her aground upon a rock, that nobody knows nothing about, on the starboard side of the entrance of the harbour; and I said that she were grounded to the master, who orders us to pull back to the vessel to assist ’em in getting her off again.

  “Well, sir, we gets alongside of her, and finds that she was off again, having only grazed the rock, and the boats towed her out again with a rally. Now the Frenchmen were firing at us with muskets, for we had shut in the battery, and as we were almost out of the musket-shot, the balls only pitted in the water, without doing any harm — and I was a-standing with the master on the starn-sheets, my body being just between him and the beach where they were a-firing from. It seemed mortally impossible to hit him, except through me. Howsomever, a bullet passes between my arm — just here, and my side, and striked him dead upon the spot. There warn’t another man hit out of nine boats’ crews, and I’ll leave you to guess whether the sailors didn’t declare that he got his death all along of murdering the cat.

  “Well, sir, the men thought, as he had fired first, that now all was over; only Jenkins, the boatswain’s-mate, said, ‘that he warn’t quite sure of that.’ We parts company with the commodore the next day, and the day a’ter, as it turned out, we falls in with a French frigate. She had the heels of us, and kept us at long balls, but we hoped to cut her off from running into Brest, if a slant o’ wind favoured us — and obligating her to fight, whether or no. Tom Collins, the first lieutenant, was still laid up in his cot with the rheumaticks, but when he hears of a French frigate, he gets up, and goes on deck; but when he gets there he tips us a faint, and falls down on the carronade slide, and his hat rolled off his head into the waist. He tried, but he was so weak that he couldn’t get up on his sticks again.

  “Well, sir, the captain goes up to him, and says something about zeal, and all that, and tells him he must go down below again, because he’s quite incapable, and orders the men at the foremost carronades to take him to his cot. Now, sir, just as we were handing him down the ladder, for I was captain of the gun, a shot comes in at the second port, and takes off his skull as he lays in our arms, and never hurts another man. He was dead in no time; and what was more curious, it was the only shot that hit the frigate. The Frenchman got into Brest — so it was no action, after all.

  “So, you see, Mr Macallan, in two scrummages only two men were killed out of hundreds, and they were the two who had killed the cat! Now, that’s what I calls proof positive, for I seed it all with my own eyes; and I should like to know whether you could do the same, with regard to that thing being a hanimal?”

  “I will, Marshall; to-morrow you shall see that with your own eyes.”

  “To-morrow come never!” (see note 1) muttered the coxswain, replacing the quid of tobacco in his cheek.

  Note 1. The phraseology of sailors has been so caricatured of late, that I am afraid my story will be considered as translated into English. Seamen, however, must decide which is correct.

  Chapter Twenty Seven.

  And, lo! while he was expounding, in set terms, the most abstruse of his pious doctrines, the head of the tub whereon the good man stood gave way, and the preacher was lost from before the eyes of the whole congregation.

  Life of the Reverend Mr Smith, SS.

  Seymour, who was always the companion of Captain M — , whenever either instruction or amusement was to be gained, now quitted the surveying party to join Macallan, who still continued seated on the rocks, reflecting upon the remarkable coincidence which the coxswain had narrated, sufficient in itself to confirm the superstitious ideas of the sailors for another century. His thoughts naturally reverted to the other point, in which seafaring men are equally bigoted, the disastrous consequences of “sailing on a Friday;” the origin of which superstition can easily be traced to early Catholicism, when out of respect for the day of universal redemption, they were directed by their pastors to await the “morrow’s sun.”

  “Thus,” mentally exclaimed Macallan, “has religion degenerated into superstition; and that which, from the purity of its origin, would have commanded our respect, is now only deserving of our contempt. It is by the motives that have produced them, that our actions must be weighed. That which once was an offering of religious veneration and love, is now a tribute to superstition and to fear. Well, Seymour,” said he, addressing his companion, “how do you like surveying?”

  “Not much; the sun is hot, and the glare so powerful that I am almost blind. What a pity it is that we had not some trees here, to shade us from the heat! I should like to plant some for the benefit of those who may come after us.”

  “A correct feeling on your part, my boy; but no trees would grow here at present — there is no soil.”

  “There is plenty of some sort or other in the part where we have been surveying.”

  “Yes, the sand thrown up by the sea, and the particles of shells and rock, which have been triturated by the wave, or decomposed by the alternate action of the elements; but there is no vegetable matter, without which there can be no vegetable produce. Observe, Willy, — the skeleton of this earth is framed of rocks and mountains, which have been proudly rearing their heads into the clouds, or lying in dark majesty beneath the seas, since the creation of the world, when they were fixed by the Almighty architect, to remain till time shall be no more. Over them, we find the wrecks of a former world — once as beautiful, as thickly peopled, but more thoughtless and more wicked than the present, which was hurled into one general chaos, and its component, but incongruous parts, amalgamated in awful mockery by the deluge — that tremendous evidence of the wrath of Heaven. But it has long passed away; and o’er the relics of former creation, o’er the kneaded mass of man in his pride, of woman in her beauty, of arts in their splendour, of vice in her zenith, and of virtue in her tomb, we are standing upon another, teeming with life, and yielding forth her fruits in the season as before. But, Willy, the supports of life are not to be found in primeval rocks or antediluvial remains. It is from the superficial covering, the thin crust with which the earth is covered, composed of the remains of former existence, of the breccia of exhausted nature, that animal creation derives its support; and it is the grand axiom of the universe, that animal life can only be supported by animal remains. From the meanest insect that crawls upon the ground, to man in his perfection, life is supported and continued by animal and vegetable food; and it is only the decayed matter returned to the earth, which enables the lofty cedar to extend its boughs, or the lowly violet to exhale its perfume. This is a world of eternal reproduction and decay — one endless cycle of the living preying on the dead — a phoenix, yearly, daily, and hourly springing from its ashes, in renewed strength and beauty. The blade of grass, which shoots from the soil, flowers, casts its seed, and dies, to make room for its offspring, nourished by the relics of its parent, is a type of the never-changing law, controlling all nature, even to man himself, who must pass away to make room for the generation which is to come.”