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Going to sea meant strict discipline; and after making up their minds to have a good time on shore, it was not pleasant to think of hard work and hard study for the next week or two. "There comes the commodore's barge," continued Little, as he pointed to the boat, which was rapidly approaching the ship. "The Arbuckles are on board, with all their trunks. What do you think of that, Raymond?"
When you see a fellow yawning about the docks like a homeward-bound Indiaman, a long Commodore's pennant of black ribbon flying from his mast-head, and fetching up at a grog-shop with a slew of his hull, as if an Admiral were coming alongside a three-decker in his barge; you may put that man down for what man-of-war's-men call a damn-my-eyes-tar, that is, a humbug.
We will plunder these ships, dig the golden sand from under the sleeping kings, and bury them in it, wrench the precious weapons from the negroes' hands and give them cheaper ones of iron in their hearts." This pleased the pirates who made up the Commodore's crew, and they responded with murmurs of approval, but the Fortuna's men remained silent, with sullen, defiant faces.
Some weeks later, the Commodore set sail in this impregnable craft for Valparaiso. But he was stopped on the way by a portly sperm whale, that begged a few moments' confidential business with him. That business consisted in fetching the Commodore's craft such a thwack, that with all his pumps going he made straight for the nearest port to heave down and repair.
"Toss!" added Dandy; and up went the four oars of the rowers. "Let fall!" and with a precision which would have been creditable to the crew of a commodore's barge, the blades struck the water as one. "Give way!" and the boat dashed down the stream, impelled by the vigorous strokes of the dusky oarsmen.
To all appearance he had entirely forgotten the circumstance: but the commodore's words, "You ought to have let that man off," rang in my ears, and my heart smote me as I felt the honest fellow's grasp. "I shall never rest," I afterwards vowed to myself, "till I have succeeded in suggesting some regulations which, as far as possible, shall prevent other officers from falling into the same error."
Vincent, soon after the firing ceased, Nelson shifted his commodore's pendant to the "Irresistible," of seventy-four guns, the "Captain" being unmanageable from the damage done to her spars and rigging.
We hope we shall not be considered as detracting in the slightest degree from the courage of these chiefs, when we state that the position chosen by them on board the Commodore's ship, was one where they apprehended the least danger to themselves namely in the tops; for although an Indian will scorn to shrink from a rifle bullet or tomahawk, it by no means enters into his code of bravery that he is to submit himself to the terrible ordeal of being battered to a jelly by a huge globe of solid iron.
As we mentioned before, the citadel threw shells with remarkable precision, and every man who had been killed on the quarter-deck of the commodore's ship, towards which the attention of the enemy was particularly directed, had been laid low by these horrible engines of modern warfare.
Yes, by the Commodore's boots! they stole me out of my cradle here in the palace of Rio, and put that green-horn in my place. Ay, you timber-head, you, I'm Don Pedro II., and by good rights you ought to be a main-top-man here, with your fist in a tar-bucket!
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