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One day a majestic Indiaman came ploughing by, with course on course of canvas towering into the sky, her decks and yards swarming with sailors, with macaws and monkeys and all manner of strange and romantic creatures populating her rigging, and thereto her freightage of precious spices lading the breeze with gracious and mysterious odours of the Orient.
Soon after the wind coming fair, we weighed and put to sea; as did also the Spanish frigate Juno, from Manilla, a Danish Indiaman, and the Dutton. As soon as we were under sail, we saluted the garrison with thirteen guns; which compliment was immediately returned with the same number.
"The Dolphin, privateer, of Weymouth. What ship is that?" answered the skipper. "The Hoogly, East Indiaman; Calcutta to London. Can you tell me whereabouts we are?" "Thirty-six miles south-by-west of Portland Bill," answered the skipper. "Much obliged to you, sir," came the faint acknowledgment from the Indiaman, already out of sight again in the fog.
His father, who was captain of a fine East Indiaman, had sailed from London when he was nine, and had never returned.
As for me, I found that I had arrived most opportunely, so far as the Felicidad was concerned, for the repairs to that small hooker were completed, as it happened, on the very day of our arrival; and Captain Stopford very generously offered me the command of her, asserting that my conduct with regard to the Indiaman had conclusively demonstrated my entire fitness for the post, and that if I chose to accept it he should have no anxiety whatever, either on the score of my courage or my discretion.
At noon I to the 'Change, and there hear by Mr. Hublon of the loss of a little East Indiaman, valued at about L20,000, coming home alone, and safe to within ten leagues of Scilly, and there snapt by a French Caper.
"You must rig in the clothes it, contains, and make your way into the celebrated crimp shop in the neighbourhood, and pick up all the information you can regarding the haunts of the pressable men at Cove, especially with regard to the ten seamen who have run from the West Indiaman we left below.
A surgeon soon afterwards came to me. "You will do well enough now, my man," he said to me in a kind voice; "but you were almost gone when we picked you up." I inquired what ship I was on board. "The Solway Castle, homeward-bound East Indiaman," he answered. This was indeed satisfactory news, as I should now, I trusted, be able to get back to my dear wife without the necessity of asking leave.
Huntington and her daughter were at first too tearful and full of gratitude for their preservation to converse, and soon took advantage of the kind offer which placed the captain's private apartments entirely at their service, while the mate explained their adventures in detail, not forgetting the phantom ship which passed them in the gale, and which had caused such consternation on board the wrecked Indiaman.
See the Halsewell, East Indiaman outward bound, driving madly on a January night towards the rocks near Seacombe, on the island of Purbeck! The captain's two dear daughters are aboard, and five other ladies. The ship has been driving many hours, has seven feet water in her hold, and her mainmast has been cut away.
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