'All in what?'
'All the Frenchmen are in harbour, with their two Indiamen and the Victor. Have not you been on deck? We are lying off Port-Louis. The coffee has a damned odd taste.'
'This I attribute to the excrement of rats. Rats have eaten our entire stock; and I take the present brew to be a mixture of the scrapings at the bottom of the sack.'
'I thought it had a familiar tang,' said Jack. 'Killick, you may tell Mr Seymour, with my compliments, that you are to have a boat. And if you don't find at least a stone of beans among the squadron, you need not come back. It is no use trying Nereide; she don't drink any.'
When the pot had been jealously divided down to its ultimate dregs, dregs that might have been called dubious, had there been the least doubt of their nature, they went on deck. The Boadicea was lying in a splendid bay, with the rest of the squadron ahead and astern of her: Sirius,
'I am afraid they are all in.'
Nereide, Otter, the brig Grappler which they had retaken at St Paul's, and a couple of fore-and-aft- rigged avisoes, from the same source: to leeward the Windham Indiaman, with parties from each ship repairing the damage caused by the blow and the violence of the enemy, watched by the philosophical French prize-crew. At the bottom of the deep curve lay Port-Louis, the capital of Mauritius, with green hills rising behind and cloud-capped mountains beyond them.
'Shall you adventure to the maintop?' asked Jack. 'I could show you better from up there.'
'Certainly,' said Stephen. 'To the ultimate crosstrees, if you choose: I too am as nimble as an ape.'
Jack was moved to ask whether there were earthbound apes, as compact as lead, afflicted with vertigo, possessed of two left hands and no sense of balance; but he had seen the startling effect of a challenge upon his friend, and apart from grunting as he thrust Stephen up through the lubber's hole, he remained silent until they were comfortably installed among the studding sails, with their glasses trained upon the town.
'You have the white building with the tricolour flying over it?' said Jack. 'That is General Decaen's headquarters. Now come down to the shore and a little to the right, and there is the Bellone: she is swaying up a new foretopmast. Another foot--he holds up his hand--he bangs home the fid: neatly done, most seamanlike. Inside her lies the Victor. Do you see the French colours over ours? The dogs; though indeed she was theirs before she was ours. Inside again, the French colours over the Portuguese: that is the Minerva. A very heavy frigate, Stephen; and no sign of her having been roughly handled that I can see. Then comes the Vinus, with the broad pendant, alongside the sheer hulk. They are giving her a new mizen. Now she has been handled rough- bowsprit gone in the gammoning, headrails all ahoo, not a dead- eye left this side, hardly; and very low in the water; pumps hard at it: I wonder they managed to bring her in. Yet it was early in the year for that kind of blow: she must have been in the heart of it, the Indiaman on the edge, and the Magicienne quite outside, for Curtis never even struck his top-gallant masts.'
'Your hurricano has a rotatory motion, I believe?'
'Exactly so. And you can be taken aback just when you think you have rode it out. Then over to the right you have the Manche and a corvette: the Criole, I believe. A very tidy squadron, once they have put the Vinus to rights. What a match it would be, was they to come out and fight their ships as well as that gallant fellow at St Paul's fought his. What was his name?'
'Feretier. Do you suppose they mean to come out?'
'Never in life,' said Jack. 'Not unless I can amuse them--not unless I can make their commodore believe we are no longer in the offing, or only one or two of us. No: it looks like Brest or Toulon all over again: steady blockade until we are down to salt horse and Old Weevil's wedding-cake. We used to call it polishing Cape Sicie in the Mediterranean. But at least it means that I can send you down to La Reunion with the Grappler, if you really have to go: she can convoy the Windham that far, in case of the odd privateer, and be back the next day. It is barely thirty leagues, and with this steady wind . . . Forgive me, Stephen, it is time for my captains. There is Clonfert's gig putting off already, with his damn-fool boat's crew. Why does he have to make such a raree-show of himself?'
'Other captains dress their boat's crew in odd garments.'
'Still, there is such a thing as measure. I do not look forward to this meeting, Stephen. I shall have to call for an explanation--they will have to tell me how the Bellone got out. However, it will not be long. Shall you wait for me here?'
The conference was longer than Jack had expected, but Stephen, cradled in his top as it swung fore and aft on the long even swell, scarcely noticed the passage of time. He was warm through and through, so warm that he took off his neck-cloth; and while his eye dwelt on the motions of the seabirds (noddies, for the most part), the routine work on the deck below, the repairs carrying on aboard the Windham, and the boats moving to and fro, his mind was far away on La Reunion, following a large number of schemes designed to overcome the French reluctance to becoming British by means less forthright, and less murderous, than a yardarm-to yardarm engagement with both broadsides roaring loud. He was therefore almost surprised to see the Commodore's large red face heave up over the edge of his capacious nest; while at the same time he was concerned to see its heavy, anxious expression, the comparative dullness of that bright blue eye.
'This is a damned awkward harbour for a close blockade,' observed the Commodore. 'Easy enough to slip out of, with the wind almost always in the south-east, but difficult to enter, without you are lucky with the sea breeze and the tide--that is why they use St Paul's so often--and difficult to bottle up tight in the dark of the moon. Still, come down into the cabin, if you would like a wet: Killick has discovered a few pale ancient beans that will just provide our elevenses.'
In the cabin he said, 'I do not blame them for letting the Bellone slip between them and the cape; and the Canonniere was gone before ever they reached their stations. But I do blame them for falling out over it. There they sat like a couple of cross dogs, answering short and glaring at one another. It was Pym's responsibility as the senior captain, of course; but whose fault it was in fact I could not make out. All I am sure of is that they are on wretched terms. Clonfert seems to have a genius that way, but I am surprised at Pym, such an easy, good-natured fellow. However, I have invited all captains to dine, and let us hope that will smooth things over. It is a miserable business, these rivalries in a squadron. I though I had got rid of them with Corbett.'
Although this dinner, whose main dishes were a fourhundred-pound turtle and a saddle of mutton from the Cape, was eaten in a humid ninety degrees, it did restore a semblance of civility, if not more. Pym was no man to keep up a resentment, and Clonfert could command the social graces; they drank wine together, and Jack saw with relief that his entertainment was going fairly well. Curtis of the Magicienne was a lively, conversable man, and he had much to tell them about the French squadron and its depredations in the Company's far eastern settlements: Hamelin, their commodore, was a savage, Jacobin fellow, it seemed, though a good seaman, while
