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I had to acknowledge the truth, when, refusing to hear anything I had to say, though I pleaded hard to be allowed to go free, he ordered me with the rest into the boat alongside. Having got all the men he could obtain, the lieutenant steered for Sheerness, and took us alongside a large ship lying off the dockyard, where she had evidently been fitting out.
It was with a shock of surprise that he recognized in the fugitives the overseer of the dockyard, whose cruelties he had so good reason to remember, and Marmaduke Diggle, as he still must call him. The sight of the latter set his nerves tingling; his fingers itched to take some toll for the miseries he had endured through Diggle's villainy.
"And a very creditable `all, too," answered the Admiral, evidently well pleased. "And what about your seamanship?" he continued. "I believe I am pretty good at that too, sir," I said. "I was at Portsmouth, in the dockyard, every day during the fitting-out of the frigate, and watched the whole process of rigging her. When I first saw her she had nothing standing but her three lower-masts."
When we boarded, the Wave had been left with only Peter Mangrove; the five dockyard negroes; Pearl, one of the Captain's gigs, the handsome black already introduced on the scene; poor little Reefpoint, who, as already stated, was badly hurt; Aaron Bang, Paul Gelid, and Wagtail.
She was lying in a basin near the dockyard; and, at first sight, from her want of paint, and her dismantled state, I was much disappointed in her, and could not help showing that I was so to my friend. "She is better than she looks," he replied. "Wait a week or so, and you will think very differently of her. Many a gay-looking bark may have rotten timbers.
In the same year the landmark on the beach at Stoke, near Gosport, called the Kicker, was erected, and the buoy of the horse placed at Spithead, for the better security of ships going into Portsmouth Harbour. Some docks were made at Plymouth, and storehouses, as also residences for the accommodation of the officers of the dockyard, were built.
It was said that at the end of 1907 the German Government had ships of war building in every great dockyard in the world. It is known that the entire fleet of the "Kaiser" class torpedo-boats and destroyers was built and set afloat at the German Emperor's own private expense.
Pulling steadily away from the old ship on the stream which was running up the harbour, making this appear one vast lake up to Fareham Creek under the base of the Portsdown hills, a lake whereon floated long lines of old hulks of the past, interspersed with many a specimen of the newer models of the present ships of the Navy, the cutter at last landed us at the foot of the King's Stairs; when, unshipping our bags and shouldering them again, we crossed the dockyard in single file, under charge of a petty officer, making for the guardship to which we had been drafted, which was lying alongside the North Wall, not far from the Excellent.
Ships of war, or ships adapted for such service, going to a port of the enemy for sale. Copper in sheets, certified by government dockyard officers as fit for the sheathing of ships. Brimstone, destined to a port of warlike equipment.
Now, the moment I saw the two figures stop short, and point to her, I said to myself, 'Ah, my old girl, so they won't even let the blue water finish you, but they must set their carpenters and dockyard people to work upon you. This thought grieved me more and more.
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