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I've gone to a great deal of trouble to bring it about; your shipmates are a gutless crew, Roy, and I had begun to think I could not get a fight out of them. But the swabs are coming aft at the end of the mid-watch. Eight bells in the mid-watch count the bells, Roy. Eight bells elimination! "Then there will be just one loose end left and you know what I have planned for her!
"Our log-book indicates that we passed a steamer to the northward of us at four bells in the mid-watch," said Captain Ringgold, when Dr. Ferrolan finished his narrative. "She was headed about west by south; and very likely it was the one which ran into the Travancore, for no other was reported." "She was a vessel of about four hundred tons," added the viscount.
I was aroused in the mid-watch, having had about only three hours' sleep, after a day of fatigue and excitement, by the announcement that a large barque was close aboard of us. We were lying to at the time in company with our two prizes. Wore ship very quietly, and gave chase. The chase rather got the wind of us, though we head-reached upon her, and at daylight we hoisted the English flag.
The topsails were soon clewed up and made fast, then the flying jib run down and furled. Quite a sea was rolling by this time, occasionally breaking over the decks, flooding them and threatening to smash the boats. At six bells we were ordered to turn them over and put on storm lashings. This occupied us till eight bells, when we were relieved by the mid-watch.
'Thou! if Thou wast He, who at mid-watch came, By the starlight naming a dubious Name; And if we were too heavy with sleep, too rash With fear O Thou, if that martyr-gash Fell on Thee, coming to take Thine own, And we gave the Cross, when we owed the throne; 'Thou art the Judge. We are bruised thus. But, the Judgment over, join sides with us!
In the night mostly in the mid-watch, when it's quietest. I've leant over the rail and heard it whisper up to me. People laugh at that, but they know nothing of the sea.
Being even at nineteen of a meditative turn, fond of building castles in the air, or recalling old acquaintance and auld lang syne, the retrospect of youth, though short, seems longer than that of age, I preferred in ordinary weather the mid-watch, from midnight to four. There was then less doing; more time and scope to enjoy. The canvas had long before been arranged for the night.
I was almost startled when his great bushy head was thrust into my room door, and he announced loudly that it was the mid-watch, and that I would need a stout jacket to ward off the cold. For the next three days we went along merrily to the northward, the beginning of the southeast trade behind us, and our skysails drawing full overhead. On the third day Cape Agullas was sighted on our beam.
As I lay in my hammock that night, overhead I heard the slow weary draggings of the three ponderous strangers along the encumbered deck. Their stupidity or their resolution was so great, that they never went aside for any impediment. One ceased his movements altogether just before the mid-watch.
But when the mid-watch had been mustered, the lookouts stationed, and the rest of them had settled themselves down for sleep between the guns, out of the way of passing feet, the forecastle of the Congress offered a very decent promenade, magnificent compared to that proverbial of the poops of small vessels "two steps and overboard."
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