'The great advantage of these ark-like vessels,' observed Stephen, 'is that one can at least speak in privacy. The Admiral, with his luxury of dining-room, bedroom, antechamber, forecabin, and then this magnificence with the balcony behind, could riot at his ease; the Commodore can freely speak his mind. A mind that is, I fear, oppressed by melancholy thoughts?'
'Yes: commodious, ain't it?' said Jack, stepping out on to the stern-gallery, from which he could see the Wasp, rising and failing ten feet on the long smooth swell and shivering her foretopsail from time to time to keep her pace down to that of the two-decker. Coming back he said, 'Stephen, I do so hate this vile scheme of yours.'
'I know you do, my dear,' said Stephen, 'You have frequently mentioned it. And each time I have replied, that in the first place the contacts and the information I seek are of essential importance; and in the second, that the risk is negligible. I walk two hundred paces along a strand clearly defined by palm- trees; I call at the second house I see--a house of which I have an accurate drawing--I make a contact of inestimable value, receive my information, deliver these documents, whose extreme tenuity, you see'--holding them out--'renders them edible, as tradition doth require--I walk back to the boat and so to your swift-sailing machine, to join you, with the blessing, for breakfast. I promise not to linger, Jack, though La Reunion is another Ophir, to the philosophic mind.'
Jack paced up and down: all that Stephen said was perfectly reasonable. Yet not so many years ago Jack had fetched him out of Port Mahon more dead than alive, Port Mahon in Minorca, where he had been caught on a secret mission, interrogated with all the barbarity of the Inquisition, and very nearly destroyed.
'Minorca was entirely different,' said Stephen. 'In that case I had been undermined at home. Here the possibility does not exist.'
'It is not only that,' said Jack, coming to a halt in front of a chart of the coast of La Reunion. 'Just look at these God-damned reefs. Think of the surf. I have told you again and again, Stephen, these inshore waters are hellish dangerous--reefs everywhere, half of 'em uncharted, the most tremendous surf. I know what I am talking about. I was here as a boy. There is scarcely a beach where you can land in safety, even when the swell is more moderate by half , To get into your Petite Anse you must run through a gap in the reef not a cable's length across even at high tide, by moonlight. And what if this Company's chap don't find it? He is no pilot for these waters: admits it candidly.'
'The alternative is to go in the Otter. Clonfert does know these shores; and he has a native pilot. And since I shall have to spend some time in the Otter sooner or later, I am eager to know her captain. Much will depend upon our understanding.'
'Certainly he knows this coast,' said Jack, 'but then the coast knows him. He has been In and out a score of times on this east side alone. The Otter is very recognizable, and if any fishing-boat or aviso or watchman on the cliffs sees her standing in, then every soldier and militiaman on the island will be running about, shooting the first thing that stirs. No: if it has to be, then the schooner is the right choice. Her captain is a steady young fellow and a good seaman; nothing flash or gimcrack about him or his Wasp. Besides, there is the time.'
'Sure, I should prefer the schooner. She leaves us at Rodriguez for Bombay, as I understand it, and that will preserve my character a little longer.'
'Well,' said Jack in the most unwilling voice. 'But I tell you, Stephen, I shall give him absolute orders to return immediately if he cannot make out his leading marks at once, or at the least sign of movement ashore. And Stephen, I must tell you this, too: if the scheme goes wrong, I cannot land a party to bring you off.'
'It would be madness to attempt any such thing,' said Stephen placidly; and after a slight pause, 'Honest Jack, would it be uncivil to remind you, that time waits for no man? This also applies, they tell me, to the tide.'
'Then at least,' cried Jack, 'I can send Bonden with you, and have a carronade mounted in the boat.'
'That would be kind; and might I suggest that black men for the boat's crew would be a diabolically cunning stroke, by way of amusing the enemy? For we must assume that he sees in the dark, the creature.'
'I shall attend to it this minute,' said Jack, and he left Stephen to his encoding.
A little before four bells in the afternoon watch Dr Maturin was lowered like a parcel on to the heaving deck of the Wasp, where Bonden seized him, cast off the five fathoms of stout line that had held him motionless (no one had the least opinion of his powers of self-preservation, at sea) and led him aft, whispering, 'Don't forget to pull off your hat, sir.'
It was a round hat of French manufacture, and Stephen took it off to the schooner's quarterdeck and to her captain with something of an air; then turning about with the intention of waving it to Jack he found that he was gazing over a broad lane of sea at the Raisonable's stolid figurehead. The schooner had already crossed the two- decker's bows, and she was now flying goose-winged towards the clouds that hung over La Reunion.
'If you will step this way, sir,l said the captain of the Wasp, 'I believe we shall find our dinner ready.'
At the same moment Killick mounted to the poop of the Raisonable, where Jack was staring after the schooner, and stated, with something of his old acerbity, that 'the gentlemen were treading on one another's toes in the halfdeck this ten minutes past: and his honour still in his trousers.' Abruptly Jack realized that he had forgotten his invitation to the wardroom, that he was improperly dressed--north of Capricorn once more he had reverted to the free and easy ducks--and that he was in danger of committing unpunctuality. He darted below, huddled on his uniform, and shot into the great cabin just as five bells struck. Here he received his guests, the sailors in their best blue coats, the soldiers in their scarlet, and all of them red faced in the heat, for they had had their finery on for the last half hour at least: presently he led them to the dining-table, where the skylight admitted the rays of the ardent sun, and they grew redder still. At the beginning of a cruise, and often right through it, these feasts, theoretically the gathering of equals for social intercourse but in fact the almost obligatory attendance of men belonging to different steps of a rigid and never-forgotten hierarchy, tended to be ponderous affairs. Jack was perfectly aware of it, and he exerted himself to give some semblance of spontaneity to his entertainment. He tried very hard, and at one point, feeling for the sufferings of the Marine captain whose stock was bringing him nearer and nearer to a cerebral congestion, he even though of bidding them take off their heavy coats: but that would never do--a disproportioned thought indeed--for although he naturally liked his guests to enjoy themselves, he must not conciliate their goodwill by the least improper concession; they must enjoy themselves within the limits of naval convention, and these limits certainly did not extend to turning the cabin into a bawdy-house. He confined himself to ordering the awning, removed for Stephen's aerial voyage, to be rigged again, and water to be dashed upon the deck.
Although his heart was not in it, he laboured on: yet artificial conviviality is rarely infectious, and still they sat, hot, prim, polite. Convention required that no man but Jack Aubrey should initiate any conversation, and since they had not yet taken the measure of their new Commodore they obeyed it religiously. Presently he began to run short of topics, and he was reduced to urging them to eat and drink. For his own part he could only go through the motions of eating--his stomach was quite closed--but as a grateful coolness began to come down from the shaded skylight, wafted by the unvarying south- east trade, the bottle went about more briskly. Even before the port came
