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Here Captain Reud interrupted the speaker, and told him that Joshua was a prisoner under punishment, and waiting only for convalescence to receive the remainder of his six dozen lashes. At hearing this, his lordship appeared truly shocked; and, drawing Reud aside, they conversed for some minutes, in whispers.
Captain Reud, having been lying for many, many weeks, apparently unconscious of objects around him, one morning said, in a faint, low voice, when Dr Thompson and Mr Farmer, the first-lieutenant, were standing near him, "Send Ralph Rattlin to read the Bible to me."
In addition to the green shade, our doctor had enwrapped his throat with an immense scarlet comforter; so that the reflection of the green above, and the contrast with the colour below, made the pallor of his face still more lividly pale. He was well got up. Captain Reud nodded to the surgeons to go on, and he proceeded with his own argument.
"I have been thinking," said Captain Reud, placing the forefinger of his left hand, with an air of great profundity, on the left side of his nose, "I have been thinking of the very curious fatality that has attached itself to Mr Silva's excellent work."
"To be sure; but do me one little favour in return." "Anything, anything, Ralph I'll never mast-head you again." "Oh, I was not thinking of that; I ought not to have put you in a passion. Punish me mast-head me do anything, Captain Reud, but call me not bastard."
In an instant he was at my side with some weak wine and water. I took it from the hand of him whom, a few hours before, in my animosity I could have slain. "Ralph," said he, as he received back the tumbler, "Ralph, are we friends?" "Oh! Captain Reud, how could you treat a poor lad thus, who respected, who loved you so much?" "I was mad do you forgive me, Ralph?" and he took my not unwilling hand.
Captain Reud amused himself by endeavouring to teach him to dance; and a worthless blackguard who could play on the pipe and tambour, and who probably had led a bear about the country, was taken into especial grace, and was loaded with benefits, in order to assist his captain in his singular avocations.
"As-ton-ish-ing!" said my Lord Whiffledale. "Is that Mr Ralph Rattlin?" "The same, my lord," said Captain Reud. "Shall I introduce him to your lordship?" "By no manner of means yet for his father's sake really ridiculous! Henry, the fifth baron of Whiffledale ah! black eyes, filthy costume, very particularly filthy, upon my honour. How is this, Captain Reud?
However, as the shock to the wounded captain would have been the greater to say that I had been assassinated, they chose the milder alternative, and told him that "they feared I had deserted." Captain Reud merely said, "I don't believe it," turned his face to the bulkhead, and remained silent for three or four days more.
Captain Reud looks fierce and forbidding, and Mr Farmer, for his generally impassible features, really quite savage. I come forward shudderingly and look down. The wandering and restless eyes of the frightened young man meet, in an instant, what, most probably, they are seeking my own. "Ralph Rattlin, speak for me to the captain."
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