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Three times did large bodies get away and rejoin their tribes once from Sir George Grey's island estate at Kawau, where they had been turned loose on parole; once from a hulk in Wellington Harbour, through one of the port-holes of which they slipped into the sea on a stormy night; the third time from the Chatham Islands. This last escape, which was in July, 1868, was fraught with grave mischief.
It was exactly thirty-six minutes later, by the clock in the pilot-house, that Mildmay, peering out through one of the port-holes, pointed straight ahead, and exclaimed "There she is! There cannot be any mistake about it, for yonder steamer is exactly where the Ludwig Gadd ought to be; and there is no other craft anywhere in sight."
Faces and gun-muzzles thickened at the port-holes and at the windows; the line of guards turned their faces sidewise and upward; the crowd on the fence scuffled for better positions; the people in the trees craned their necks from the branches or climbed higher, and there was a great scraping on all the roofs.
Sir Harry hailed, and her answer was, `The Hussar frigate, Lord Garlies, from the West Indies. Having come from a long voyage, her appearance was accounted for. Seeing the lights at all our port-holes, those on board the frigate could not understand the necessity of such extreme precautions, being, of course, ignorant of the mutiny.
All the guns from the larboard main deck had been brought up to the upper deck and port-holes made for them, and a boom of trees had been built from the bow and stern of the ship to the shore, so as to prevent any craft from getting inside her.
The Boston boat was the prettiest to see, with her three tiers of port-holes lit, like a string of pearls wrapped round and round a woman's neck well away, too, for the ledge must have made a couple of hundred fathoms off the Light, like a white dog-tooth of a breaker, even on the darkest night.
I went on deck afterward to find the ship plunging through blackness on forced draft, with port-holes shrouded and with not even a riding-light. If not in Davy Jones's locker by that time, we should reach Gibraltar the next evening; afterward we should head for Naples, a two days' trip. The following morning found our stormy weather over.
I remember seeing the sails, which we were now trying to roll up upon the deck, torn out of our hands by the wind and go overboard like a penny balloon very nearly carrying Chee-Chee with them. And I have a dim recollection of Polynesia screeching somewhere for one of us to go downstairs and close the port-holes.
To do it, the whole of the guns on the larboard side were run out as far as they would go, quite to the breasts of the guns, and the starboard guns drawn in amidships and secured by tackles, two to every gun, one on each side. This brought the water-nearly on a level with the port-holes of the larboard side of the lower gun-deck.
For I'll tell you one thing, Joe Wylie if she takes fire and runs before the wind till she is as black as coal, and belching flame through all her port-holes, and then explodes, and goes aloft in ten thousand pieces no bigger than my hat, or your knowledge of navigation, Hudson is the last man to leave her. Duty!
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