He pushed through to the quarterdeck; and there were the same grave faces, grey with cold and discouragement, looking fixedly to windward, that is to say a little south of the ship's modest wake. 'What is afoot?' he murmured in Reade's ear.
'Stand over here, sir,' said Reade, guiding him to the rail, 'and look out to windward.'
A topsail schooner sailing large: and some miles beyond her a ship, also standing north-north-east with topgallants and studdingsails abroad, a glorious sight; but one that gave no pleasure.
'It is that brutal great American, come to snap us up,' said Reade.
'Shame on him, after such a handsome message,' murmured Wedel.
'Where is the Captain?'
'Aloft, sir; but,' Reade whispered, 'he don't see very well today. Both eyes water so in the cold.'
'It is cold, sure,' said Stephen. He focused his best newly-cleaned glass, a superlative piece made for him by Dolland with a somewhat greater magnification than was usual in the Navy, for identifying birds; and presently he said, 'Tell me, Mr Reade: frigates have but one row of guns, have they not?'
'Yes, sir. Just one,' said Reade patiently, holding up a single finger.
'Well, this boat, or vessel, has two; as well as some each end.'
'Nay, sir,' said Reade, shaking his head: then urgently, 'Please may I have a look? Oh sir,' he shrieked to Pullings at the taffrail, 'she ain't the Yankee. She's a two decker. A sixty-four-gun ship -the Doctor saw her.'
'On deck, there,' came Jack's voice from on high, cutting through the unworthy hubbub. 'She's a sixty-four-gun ship, the old Berenice, I think - yes, the old Berenice - from the New South Wales station. Bery nicey too,' he added, with a private chuckle.
'And that, much nearer to us,' said Stephen to the ecstatic Reade, 'is what we at sea term a schooner; but you need not be afraid. She carries little in the way of guns.'
'A Baltimore clipper, sir, I believe,' said Mr Adams.
'Indeed? I could have sworn she was a schooner, in spite of those rectangular sails in front.'
'Certainly, sir. She is certainly a schooner in rig. The clipper part refers to her hull.'
'Oh, she has a hull as well, has she? I was not aware. But pray tell me, Mr Adams, do you think you could find a little small bag of pepper, just half a stone or so, in the Captain's storeroom itself?'
'Sir, I have searched it through and through, in spite of that wicked Killick, and - see, she is rounding to.'
The schooner checked her way and a tall young midshipman, standing on her low rail and holding a shroud, hailed, 'The ship ahoy - if ship you can be called, poor hulk [this in an undertone] - what ship is that?'
'His Majesty's hired vessel Surprise,' replied Tom. 'Captain Pullings.'
All along her side the schooner's hands stood grinning, staring, making offensive gestures: the Surprises looked back with stony hatred.
'Come aboard with your papers,' said the midshipman.
'Take that American contraption back to the Berenice,' roared Jack, half-way down the ratlines, 'and tell Captain Dundas with Captain Aubrey's compliments that he will wait upon him. D'ye hear me, there?'
'Yes, sir,' replied the midshipman, and on either side of him the simpering stopped dead. 'Aye aye, sir: Captain Aubrey's compliments... Sir,' he called across the widening lane, 'may I say Philip Aubrey is aboard?'
Oh the mirth aboard the Surprise. Several of the younger men leapt into the rigging, ostentatiously slapping their buttocks at the schooner as she fled away, sailing unbelievably close to the wind. But more, many more of the hands gathered in the waist or on the forecastle, oblivious of the cold, revelling in their prize-money preserved, even as it were restored, laughing, clapping one another on the back.
The ships drew near; nearer. 'I know perfectly well what he is going to say,' murmured Jack to Stephen as they stood there in their boat-cloaks by the gangway stanchions. 'He is going to call out, 'Well, Jack, whom the Lord loveth He chastizeth', and all his people will set up a silly cackle. There's Philip! Lord, how he has shot up.' Philip was Jack Aubrey's half-brother, last seen as a youngster aboard Dundas's previous command.
The Surprise, with her frail spars, could not easily get her launch over the side, and Dundas was sending his barge for them. It was lowered down in a seamanlike manner, and as it shoved off Captain Dundas, waving his hat from the Berenice's quarterdeck, called, 'Well, Jack, whom the Lord loveth He chastizeth, ha, ha, ha! You must be a prime favourite up above. Heavens, you are in a horrid state.'
'Captain Dundas, sir,' cried Stephen, 'Do you think you could oblige me with a few pounds of fresh black pepper?'
The reply was lost as Jack's bosun and his mates piped their Captain over the side: a howling repeated three minutes later as the Berenice piped him aboard.
Stephen, Pullings and Philip withdrew from their splendid dinner quite early, Stephen carrying his pepper; and Jack said, 'Old Hen, what a pleasant young fellow you have made of Philip. I am so grateful.'
'Not at all,' said Dundas. 'He might have been born to the sea. Cobbold says he will rate him master's mate in Hyperion, next year, if you would like it.'
'I should like it very much indeed. It is time he was out of leading-strings; though yours I am sure were the kindest in the world.'
They sat comfortably together - very old friends and shipmates - sipping their port, pushing the decanter to and fro. Dundas told the servants to turn in, and presently he said, 'You have had a rough time of it, Jack: and so I think has Maturin.'
'Yes, I have: pretty rough. And he has, too. Then again we have both been away a terrible long time, you know, with very little news, and that adds to the ordinary battering of a distant voyage: not that it was so ordinary
