grim bruisers and former Bow Street runners who supervised the operation they took no umbrage and stowed the double-refined platina so that it would bring the clipper a trifle by the stern; and they were preparing to cast off in the first light when it was found that Arthur Mould was missing.
'Ain't he back yet?' asked Bonden. The other Sethians shook their heads, looking down. 'Joe,' said Bonden to the youngest member of the crew, 'cut along to Bedmaid Lane, first on the left going downstream, knock on the door of number six - a great big six in red - and ask for Mr Gideon Mould. The barky awaits his pleasure.'
'His pleasure, ha, ha, ha. That's right, cock,' said several of his mates. 'What a cove he is, that old Mould. He can't leave it alone.'
Mould, glum now, penniless, and anxious about the possible outcome of his repeated joys, returned: the Ringle hoisted her jib, shoved off from the wharf and stood out into the midstream at half-ebb, with a stiff breeze on her starboard beam, followed by a cry from a black man in a crimson gig 'What ho, the Baltimore clipper oh!'
When all was settled and the river somewhat broader, less crowded, Reade found Stephen in the cabin and said 'Please would you look at the log-book, sir? I have wrote it fair.'
'Very fair it is too, upon my faith,' said Stephen, looking at the neat column of dates, winds, and remarks.
'And here, sir, you see the exact minute of our dropping anchor in the Pool. Please would you sign, small and neat in the margin, with all the degrees you can think of, and FRS as well? They will never believe me, else.'
Stephen signed, and Reade, having gloated over the entry for a while, said 'And don't we wish we may do the same going back? Oh no, not at all. Still, she is by the stern now, near half a strake, which is some comfort.'
'In what way is it a comfort, William?'
'Why, sir, she will beat to windward just that trifle better.' Seeing the blank stupidity on the Doctor's face he added 'Had you not noticed it is still in the west-south-west?'
'I thought it was on our flank, the wind, our broad side, our starboard beam,' said Stephen. 'I particularly noticed it when my hat blew off. But then no doubt it is we that have turned rather than the breeze or indeed I may even say tempest. Do you suppose that we may be windbound like those unhappy convoys in the Downs, the sorrow and woe?'
'Oh no, sir, I hope not. I dare say the breeze will have changed by then - I have no doubt of it, indeed, from the tingling in my wound.'
But for all Reade's tingling - he had been wounded in the arm during an action with Dyaks in the East Indies, and Stephen had had to take it off - it was still blowing strong from the west-south-west as they passed the Nore again in the falling dusk; and all the way along from the North Foreland the whole length and breadth of the Downs glittered with the riding-lights of ships lying there with two or three cables ahead, windbound still, with many new arrivals. The wind grew stronger with the progress of the night, and in the middle watch four ships drove upon the Goodwin Sands.
The following week was among the most disagreeable that Stephen had ever known. Evening after evening promised relief; and every time the sun went down the promise proved false. There were slightly less dangerous lulls in the day, usually about noon, and a few hardy Deal boats would come out, trade at famine prices along the more sheltered merchantmen, and then put in, downwind, at Ramsgate; but even these were sometimes wrecked. Some days after the squadron must have sailed - for even Dr Maturin could see that ships lying off St Helens had a west-south-west wind on the beam rather than in their teeth like the unfortunate souls in the Downs - he embarked in one of these Deal boats for Ramsgate, half determined to post across country to Barham. But sitting there in a music-shop and reflecting, he found that the uncertainties were too great. This was an enterprise that had to be carried out in one smooth sequence - easily or not at all - no wavering, no hesitation. There must be no Ringle arrived independently at a time unknown, no indiscreet loquacious messengers blundering about, no indefinite waiting, no widely aroused public curiosity.
'Now, sir, if you please,' said the shopman, 'I fear I must put up my shutters. There is an auction at Deal that I must attend.'
'Very well,' said Stephen, 'then I shall take this' - holding up Haydn's Symphonie fun?e - 'if you will be so good as to wrap it thoroughly; for I too must ride back to Deal, to regain my ship.'
'In that case, sir, pray come with me in my taxi-cart. I will fold the score into a double piece of oilskin, for I am afraid you will have but a wet trip in the boat.'
From this point until Saturday he returned to his cocaleaves, feeling that the din alone, the incessant though varied howling, shrieking and moaning of the wind, the perpetual thunder of the seas, justified the measure, quite apart from mental distress. He found that they had one very curious and unexpected effect: for whereas ordinarily he was a poor and hesitant reader of an orchestral score, he could now hear almost the entire band playing away together at his first run through the pages, not far from perfectly at the second and third. And of course the leaves also did what he had relied upon them to do, clarifying his mind, diminishing anxiety, largely doing away with hunger and sleep; yet on the third day he was aware of the impression that they were doing these things not to Stephen Maturin but to a somewhat inferior, apathetic, uninterested man who, though cleverer in some ways, thought Haydn of no great consequence. 'Can it be that I am over-indulging?' he asked, as he counted the leaves to ascertain his usual dose. 'Or may the incessant and violent pitching be the cause of this dismal change, the loss of joy?'
'Doctor,' cried William Reade, breaking in on his thoughts, 'this time I believe we can really hope. The glass has risen!'
Other vessels had noticed this - many an anxious eye had been fixed upon the barometer - and now there was a certain amount of activity in the road; but the wind was still too strong and too dead foul for any of the ships, the square-rigged ships, to think of moving in these narrow waters, though it gave signs of veering into the west and even north of west. About noon, a hoy, intently watched by the few other foreand-aft rigged vessels in the Downs, got under way. For the first moments a squall hid her from the Ringle's deck, and when it had passed she was seen to have carried away her sprit: her foresail had blown out of its bolt-rope and she was driving helpless through the lines of shipping, fouling many a hawser, cursed by all within earshot.
In the afternoon watch Bonden, coming below on a more or less convincing pretext, said to Reade 'As I dare say you know, sir, some of our people were free-traders at one time. In course, they are reformed characters now, and would scorn an uncustomed keg of brandy or chest of tea; but they remember what they learnt in them wicked days. Mould and Vaggers were once in this very spot with just such a blow in their topsail schooner, and they say with the breeze not half a point west of this there is a passage at high tide for a very weatherly craft. They took it, being in a hurry: they passed between the Hammer and Anvil, cleared the Downs and so beat downChannel as light as a fairy and put into Shelmerston the next day for supper, having met their friends off Gris Nez. And their barky,' he added, gazing at the horizon, 'was not as weatherly as ours.'
