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He's a rare chap amongst the ladies, is our friend Jellaby!" said Commander Nesbitt laughing at Mr Bitpin's imitation of Joe's favourite expression. "We must see now, though, about shortening in without any further delay, for time's getting on." "Very good, sir," replied the lieutenant, dropping his unwonted jocularity and relapsing into his matter-of-fact official manner.
"`All right, chummy, I thank you kindly, said the young marine, full of gratitude; and so, when, by-and-by, Two Bells were struck, he called out in a voice that could be heard all over the ship, `Live boy!" "He he he!" chuckled the chaplain in his feeble way, he and Mr Jellaby coming to a stop, I was glad to see, close to where I stood. "That was funny! Very, very funny!"
"Ay, ay, sir," replied the seaman, putting his telescope to his eye; when, scanning in the direction pointed out to him, he soon made out the ship. "She appears like a strange man-of-war, sir." "Very well," said Mr Jellaby. "Watch her till you can make her out perfectly." In another minute or two, the signalman made the result of his second scrutiny known.
"By Jove, he's right about that French ship," observed Mr Jellaby to me, aside, when the captain had translated this remark of the Spaniard, leaving out, however, his personal compliment to himself and our nation. "It was a scurvy trick to sail off like that, without examining the wreck. But it's just like those Johnny Crapauds, youngster.
"All right," answered the officer of the watch, Mr Jellaby, who was up on the poop and I below on the quarter-deck at the time; and then, turning to the yeoman of signals, he cried, "Signalman, a vessel's in sight on our port bow, go and look at her and see what she is."
The great Red Cross gave abundant employment for thousands of gentle and willing hands, but limited the number of directing heads, and Miss Perkins and others of the Jellaby stamp were born, as they thought, not to follow but to lead.
Mr Jellaby, however, did not stop to notice these details, but made his way as well as he could through the maze of tangled cordage and heaps of wreckage that lay about in every direction towards the portion of the main rigging yet remaining intact, where, lashed to a fragment of the bulwarks that had not been washed away, was the figure of the man Commander Nesbitt had noticed.
But, we knew better than that. "Way enough!" shouted Mr Jellaby; and, by an adroit turn of the tiller, the boat's nose shoved in under her lee to port into the slack water made by her hull. "Be ready with that grapnel there forrud!"
"Oh yes he will," said Joe Jellaby, chaffingly, "and probably, he'll bury you, too, for joy at seeing your pleasant face again all for love, my man." Mr Isaacs, however, got furious at this and used such abusive language both to "Downy" and the lieutenant that the latter gave orders at last for him to be shown over the side.
"Let us go now," said Mr Jellaby, as soon as I had taken in all these sickening surroundings, leading the way out of the accursed place. "We have stopped here long enough!" "We have indeed, sir," I replied, following him up the companion, with Bill Bates bringing up the rear in silence. "But, what do you think has happened, sir?"
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