Clinton felt not the least trepidation about the Navy's ultimate judgement, he was so- indifferent to the threat hanging over his career that he surprised even himself.
There was only one desire, one object in his mind, that overshadowed all else. He must have his ship in position to intercept Huron as she rounded the Cape, if she had not already done so. Nobody and nothing must prevent him from doing so. After that he would face his accusers with complete equanimity. Huron and Robyn Ballantyne first, beside them all else was pale and insignificant. Mr. Denham, he called his Lieutenant across the dark deck. 'We will take up night patrol station ten miles off Cape Point, and I am to be called immediately the lights of any ship are sighted.'
As Clinton threw himself down, fully dressed and booted, upon his bunk, he experienced the first peace of mind since leaving Zanzibar harbour. He had done all that was in his power to reach Cape Point ahead of Huron, and now the rest was in the hands of God, and his trust in God was implicit.
He fell asleep almost instantly, and his steward woke him again an hour before dawn. He left the mug of coffee to grow cold beside his bunk and hurried on deck, reaching it a few seconds ahead of Lieutenant Denham. No ships during the night, sir, Ferris, who had the watch, saluted him. Very well, Mr. Ferris, Clinton acknowledged. 'We will take up our daylight patrol station immediately.'
By the time the light was strong enough for a watcher on the shore to make out any details, Black joke had retreated tactfully below the horizon and it would have taken a sharp eye to pick out the occasional flash of her topsails, let alone to identify the gunboat and to speed a report to Admiral Kemp that his prodigal had returned.
From Black joke's masthead the land was a low irregular distortion Of the horizon, but a ship rounding the Cape would be many miles closer than the land.
Huron's mainmast was almost one hundred and fifty feet tall, her sails would shine like a flaming beacon and as long as the fog did not come down, which was unlikely at this season of the year, Clinton was confident that she could not slip by him.
The only disquiet that scratched him like a burr as he paced his deck, and the gunboat settled down into the regular four-sided box-patterried legs of her patrol, was that Huron had long ago flown northwards on this fine wind that at last bore steadily out of the south-east at almost gale force, and that she was already lost in the endless watery green wastes of the southern Atlantic Ocean, leaving Black joke to guard the gate of an empty cage.
He was not left long to brood, the first sighting was called down to the deck from the look-outs in the crow's nest at the main peak, and Clinton's nerves jumped tight and his expectations flared.
What do you make of her? ' he called up through the voice trumpet. Small lugger-' and his expectations plunged. A fishing-boat out of Table Bay, there would be many of them, but each time he could not control the wild surge of excitement when another sail was sighted, so that by nightfall his nerves were ragged, and his body ached with exhaustion as he gave the order for Black joke to take up her inshore patrol station for the night.
Even then be could not rest, for three times during the night he was called from his bunk, and he stumbled owleyed on deck as Black Joke went down to investigate running lights that winked ruby red and emerald green out of the darkness.
C Each time the same leap of expectation, the steeling of nerves for instant orders and swift action, and then the same let down as the lights proved to belong to small trading vessels, and the gunboat sheered away quickly, test she be recognized and her presence off the Cape be reported in Table Bay.
In the dawn, Clinton was on deck again, as the gunboat moved further offshore to take up her daylight patrol station. He was distracted by the sighting reports as his masthead look-out picked up the first sails of the fishing fleet coming out for the day's business, and by the lugubrious report of his coal-stained Scottish engineer.
Ye'll not last out the day, sir, MacDonald told him. Even though I am burning just enough coal to keep the furnace warm, we've not more than a bucket or two left. 'Mr. MacDonald, Clinton interrupted him, trying to keep his temper under control and to disguise his exhaustion. 'This ship will stay on station until I give the order, I don't care what you burn, but you are to give me steam when I ask for it, or kiss good-bye to the fattest bundle of prize money that will ever come your way.'
Despite this brave promise and threat, Clinton's hopes were sinking swiftly. They had been on station for more than a day and a night already, he could not bring himself to believe that he had beaten the swift clipper to the Cape by that margin, not unless she had been somehow miraculously delayed, and every hour increased the certainty that she had run clear away from him, taking her cargo and the woman be loved out of his life for ever.
He knew he should go below to rest, but his cabin was stifling in the rising summer heat, and in it he felt like a trapped animal. He stayed on deck, unable to keep still for more than a few moments at a time, poring over the chart table and fiddling with the navigational instruments before throwing them down and resuming his nervous pacing, shooting quick glances up at the masthead, and then roaming the ship so obviously intent on finding fault or criticizing the ship's running that his officers followed his lanky figure with troubled expressions, while the watch on deck was silent and subdued, not one of them daring to glance in his direction until Clinton's voice rose in a coldly furious cry that froze them all. Mr. Denham, ' the Lieutenant almost ran to the summons, 'this deck is a pig-sty. What animal is responsible for this filth? ' On the white holystoned deck planking was a brown splash of tobacco juice, and Denham stared at it for an instant before wheeling away to bellow a series of orders that had a dozen men scampering. The activity was so intense, the atmosphere electric, as Captain and Lieutenant stood over four men on their knees scrubbing furiously at the offending stain while others carried buckets of sea water and still others rigged the deck pump, that the hail from the masthead was almost ignored, It was left to Ferris to acknowledge it, and to enquire through the voice trumpet, What do you make of her? 'She's bull down, but she's a four-masted ship, square rigged-The activity on the deck ceased instantly, every head hfting as the look-out went on elaborating on his sighting. She's on a course to weather the Cape, now she's coming round on to a heading of north-northwest or thereabouts.'
Clinton Codrington was the first to move. He snatched the telescope out of Lieutenant Denham's hand and ran to the ratlines. With the telescope tucked in his belt he began to climb, hand over hand.
He went up steadily, never pausing nor faltering, not even when he reached the futtock shrouds and for a few moments hung over backwards one hundred feet above the swaying deck. However, when he reached the crow's nest at the main peak and tumbled into it thankfully, his breath was sawing dryly in his throat and the blood sang in his ears. He had not climbed like that since he had been a midshipman.
The look-out tried to make himself as small as possible, for they were crowded together in the canvas bucket, and he pointed out the ship to his Captain. There she be, sir.'
Black joke's roll was emphasized up here on the tall pendulum of the mast, and the horizon swung giddily through the field of Clinton's telescope as he tried to keep it focused. It was an art that he had never completely mastered, but that was of little consequence for the first time the little regular white pyramids popped up in the
