Later, speaking in a disconnected, dissatisfied voice, he said, 'Why, I cannot tell, but this has been preparing ever since we left Pulo Prabang. Still, I had hoped to get through the next few days without a collision; it is so unpleasant to have bad blood aboard. I shall be heartily glad to be shot of them. Nutmeg of Consolation, maybe; Rose of Delight, perhaps; but Flower of Courtesy... the scrub. Apart from anything else I cannot play easy with ill-will just at hand - we have had no music since we sailed. Yet even with this wind we should reach our cruising- ground by something like noon tomorrow, and then it is only a week of going to and fro if Tom is not already there or has left no message, and then the couple of days' run to Batavia. Perhaps there will be news from home waiting for us there. Lord, how I should love to know how things are going.'
'Oh so should I,' cried Stephen. 'Though it is not yet possible that there should be word of Diana and our daughter. Sometimes when I think of that little soul I grow quite lachrymose.'
'A few months of roaring and bawling and swaddling-clothes will soon cure you of that. You have to be a woman to bear babies.'
'So I have always understood,' said Stephen.
'Oh very well, Dr Humorous Droll: but there is also that damned uneasy talk about banks breaking that I should like to see denied.'
And later still, when he was floating in the warm South China Sea by Stephen's skiff, his hair spreading like a mat of yellow seaweed, he said, 'I shall ask them to dinner for the day after tomorrow, in return for that remarkable feast. I do not wish to look pitiful; and I know what is due to his office.'
'Jack, I beg you will watch your step, however. Fox is an extraordinarily revengeful man, and a lawyer; and if he can carry home any substantial grievance it may do you harm, in spite of your position. For a short while he is likely to have the ear of those in power.'
'Oh, I shall not commit myself,' said Jack. 'I have seen too many post-captains, good seamen too, denied another ship for flying out under provocation.' The breeze had dropped entirely, as it often did for an hour before sunset, and the ship lay motionless. But the sun was not far from the rim of the sea; the breeze would return when it dipped; and Jack, calling upon Stephen to 'lay over, there,' heaved himself into the little boat, gliding his seventeen stone over the gunwale so that it remained just free of the surface.
'I believe you once said you were taught Greek when you were a little boy,' said Stephen as he paddled gently towards the frigate.
'To be sure I was taught it,' said Jack, laughing. 'Or rather I was attempted to be taught it, and with many a thump; but I cannot say I ever learnt it. Not beyond zeta, at all events.'
'Well, I am no Grecian either, but I did get as far as upsilon; and there I met with the word hubris, which some writers use for insolent pride of strength or achievement, open unguarded triumph and exultation.'
'Nothing more unlucky.'
'Nor in a way more impious, which is perhaps close kin. Herod was probably guilty of hubris, before being eaten by worms.'
'My old nurse - back astern, there. T'other oar. Look alive.' Jack's old nurse had had a capital remedy for worms, or rather against worms, but it was lost in the dismal collision, the rescuing of Maturin from the bottom of the boat, the recovery of his sculls. Jack, when he at last got there, was received at the gangway by Killick, screened by Richardson, Elliott, the young gentlemen and two quartermasters, and wrapped in a large towel. All hands knew perfectly well how the wind was blowing, and though utterly indifferent to his state themselves, they did not wish Fox and his Old Buggers to see their Captain mother-naked.
After quarters that evening, when for the first time since the Sultan's visit the Diane's guns spoke out in earnest, achieving their three broadsides in a fairly creditable four minutes and twenty-three seconds, and after the bulkheads had been replaced, Jack said to his steward, 'Killick, I am asking His Excellency and the suite to dinner: not tomorrow, because I mean to spread out, but the day after. Five gentlemen, Mr Fielding, the Doctor and myself. You had better get the sherry and claret over the side, towing deep, right early; and let us have a fine blaze of silver. And I should like a word with my cook and Jemmy Ducks.'
By a logic clear to all seafaring men, turtles came under the heading of poultry as far as their care and well- being were concerned, and Jemmy Ducks said that he had never seen a brisker nor so likely a creature than the larger of the two in his charge; the other seemed 'timid, rather bashful like'. As for the little Java geese, he had four prime birds, fairly yearning for the spit; and four birds would be plenty for eight gents with quite enough over for manners. The Captain's cook, a one-legged black man from Jamaica, said with a flashing smile that if there was one thing he really could send up to table fit for King George himself, it was a goose; and turtles of course came as natural to him as kiss my hand, he having been weaned on calipash and calipee.
'That was very satisfactory,' said Jack. 'I should have been sorry to keep the matter hanging for any length of time.' And having written the invitation and sent it off he said, 'Since we cannot have our music, what do you say to a hand at piquet? It is years since we played.'
'I should be very happy.'
Happy in a sense, since he always, invariably, with the utmost regularity skinned Jack Aubrey, as he skinned most others at this game, and although the money was now of no significance, it was still a pleasure to see his point of five outdo Jack's by a single pip, his tierce major triumph over a tierce minor, and Jack's eagerly announced septi? beaten down by the almost unheard-of huiti?; yet in another sense unhappy - uneasy at the sight of all this luck slipping away in trivialities. For although there was skill in the game for sure, this kind of success was all luck; and if a man had only a given amount for his whole share, it was a shame to fritter away so much as a pugh.
'What is a pugh?' asked Jack, to whom he had made this observation.
'It is a physical term, a fair and just return for all your poops and garstrakes, and it means as much as you can pick up between your thumb and first two fingers: dried herbs and the like. Jesuits' bark, for example.'
'I have always heard that a Jesuit's bark is worse than his bite,' said Jack, his blue eyes slits of mirth in his fine red face. 'Come in,' he called.
It was Edwards, extremely unhappy. 'Good evening, gentlemen,' he said, and then, addressing Jack, 'His Excellency's compliments, sir, and would it be possible to diminish the noise on the forecastle? He finds it break in upon his work.'
'Does he, indeed?' said Jack, cocking his ear forward. 'I am sorry to hear that.' This was the last dog watch, and the hands had been turned up to dance and sing: not that they needed any encouragement, not that they
