'Tell me about her guns.'
'Thirty-two nine-pounders, sir, or maybe twelves; in any case all brass. Besides her chasers. I never seen a privateer so set out. But I did not like to go aboard or look too curious, let alone ask no questions, not with that crowd of villains.'
'Was their black flag in earnest?'
'Oh yes, sir; deadly earnest. They were as thorough-paced a no-quarter-given-or-asked as ever I see - trample the Crucifix any day of the week. But you and your consort could deal with her. I dare say Surprise could do so on her own, though it might be nip and tuck; and she would buy it very dear, they having to sink or be sunk. Which I mean if they are killed they are deaders, and if they are taken they are hanged. It is half a dozen of the one and...' His voice died away; he hung his head, a certain coldness having told him that he had been talking too much.
'As taut as it is long,' said Jack, not unkindly. 'Well, Shelton, is Mr Adams to write you down as pressed or volunteer?'
'Oh volunteer, sir, if you please,' cried Shelton.
'Make it so, Mr Adams, and rate him able for the moment: starboard watch,' said Jack. He wrote on a piece of paper. 'Shelton, give this to the officer of the watch. Well, Tom,' he went on after the man had gone, 'what do you think?'
'I believe him, sir, every word,' said Pullings. 'I am not to put my opinion before yours; but I believe him.'
'So did I,' said Jack, and the old experienced Adams nodded his head. Jack rang the bell. 'Pass the word for Mr Vidal.' And a few moments later, 'Mr Vidal, when we have seen the whaler's mate and her charts, and when we have shifted as much water out of her as can be done in thirty minutes, you will take command and steer for Callao under moderate sail. We are running down no great way in the hope of a Frenchman, and it is likely we shall overtake you. If we do not, wait there. Mr Adams will give you the necessary papers and the name of our agent: he looked after the frigate's prizes on the way out. You may take the whaler's mate, bosun and cook - no arms, of course, either on themselves or in their chests - and several of our people.'
'Very good, sir,' said Vidal, unmoved.
'As for getting the water across, you have half an hour: there is not a minute to lose; and since the sea is a little choppy, spend the oil and spare not. A couple of casks are neither here nor there.'
'Aye, aye, sir: spend and spare not it is.'
'Jack!' cried Stephen, coming in to their strangely late and even twilit dinner, 'did you know that those active mariners have brought a large number of hogsheads aboard, and they filled with fresh water?'
'Have they, indeed?' asked Jack. 'You amaze me.'
'They have, too. May I have some to sponge my patients and have their clothes washed at last?'
'Well, I suppose you may have a little for sponging them - a very small bowl would be enough, I am sure - but as for washing clothes - washing clothes, good Lord! That would be a most shocking expenditure, you know. Salt does herrings no harm, nor lobsters; and my shirt has not been washed in fresh water since Heaven knows how long. It is like coarse emery-paper. No. Let us wait for the rain: have you looked at the glass?'
'I have not.'
'It began dropping in the first dog. It has already reached twenty-nine inches and it is still falling: look at the meniscus. And the wind is hauling aft. If the rain don't come down in great black squalls tonight or tomorrow, you shall have one of these hogsheads - well, half a hogshead - for your clothes.'
After a short, dissatisfied silence Dr Maturin said, 'It will be no news to you, sure, that the whaler has slipped away, going, they tell me, to Callao, if ever they can find the place God be with them.'
'I had noticed it,' said Jack through his sea-pie.
'But you may not know that two of her men forgot their pills entirely or that in his legitimate agitation Padeen gave Smyth a liniment, not telling him it was to be rubbed in rather than drunk. However, nobody, nobody has told me why we are rushing in this impetuous manner through the turgid sea, with sailors whose names I do not even know, rushing almost directly away, to judge by the sun, away from the Peru I had so longed to see and which you had led me confidently to expect before Bridie's birthday.'
'I never said which birthday, this or the next.'
'I wonder you can speak with such levity about my daughter. I have always treated yours with proper respect.'
'You called them a pair of turnip-headed swabs once, when they were still in long clothes.'
'For shame, Jack: a hissing shame upon you. Those were your very own words when you showed them to me at Ashgrove before our voyage to the Mauritius. Your soul to the Devil.'
'Well, perhaps they were. Yes: you are quite right - I remember now - you warned me not to toss them into the air, as being bad for the intellects. I beg pardon. But tell me, brother, has nobody told you what is afoot?'
'They have not.'
'Where have you been?'
'I have been in my cabin downstairs, contemplating on mercury.'
'A delightful occupation. But he is not to be seen now, you know: he is too near the sun. And to tell you the truth he is neither much of a spectacle nor a great help in navigation, though charming from the purely astronomical point of view.'
'I meant the metallic element. In its pure state quicksilver is perfectly neutral; you may swallow half a pint without harm. But in its various combinations it is sometimes benign - where would you portly men be without the blue pill? - and sometimes, when exhibited by inexpert hands, its compounds are mortal in doses so small they can hardly be conceived.'
