trifling interval between the perception of a grateful odour and active salivation and to make a variety of experiments, checked by his austerely beautiful and accurate Breguet repeater, before the door burst open and the Commodore strode in, sure-footed on the heaving deck and scattering seawater in most directions. ‘There you are, Stephen,’ he cried, his red face and bright blue eyes full of delight - he looked ten years younger - ‘I am so sorry to have kept you waiting: but I have never enjoyed a levanter half so much. It is admirably steady now, for a levanter, and we are under close-reefed topsails and courses, making close on fourteen knots! Fourteen knots! Should you not like to come on deck and see the bow-wave we are throwing?’
‘By your leave, sir,’ said Killick, in an obscurely injured or offended tone, ‘wittles is up.’ He walked in, stone-cold sober, as steady as a rock, bearing his elaborate toastedcheese affair with its spirit-lamps burning blue, and followed by his equally grave and sober mate Grimble, bearing a decanter of Romanee-Conti. ‘Which it wants eating this directly minute,’ said Killick, with the clear implication that the Commodore was late, and set the dish down with a certain ceremony.
It was indeed a splendid affair, half a dozen little covered rectangular dishes poised on a stand whose lower level held the spirit-lamps, the whole made with love by a Dublin silversmith not far from Stephen’s Green. But both were too hungry to admire until each had eaten two dishes, wiped them clean with what little Dalmatian soft-tack remained; then they gazed at the silver with some complacency and drank their capital wine, holding the glasses up so that candlelight shone through.
‘I do not like to boast about the qualities of the ship,’ said Jack, ‘but touching wood and barring all accidents, errors and omissions, we ought to log well over two hundred miles in four and twenty hours, as we sometimes did in the Trades, or even better; and if nothing carries away, and if this dear levanter don’t blow itself out in a single day, as they sometimes do, we should raise your Pantellaria on Friday, and the Cape Bon you mention so often. One, three, six or nine days is the rule for this wind.’
‘So it is for my homely tramontane. But, Jack, do you not fear the impervious horrors of a leeward shore?’
‘Lord, Stephen, what a fellow you are! Don’t you know we are in the lonian already, with Cape Santa Maria far astern and no lee-shore for a hundred sea-miles?’
‘What is the difference between a sea and a land mile, tell?’
‘Oh, nothing much, except that the sea-mile is rather longer, and very, very much wetter, ha, ha ha! Lord, what a wag I am,’ he said, wiping his eyes when he had had his laugh out. ‘Very much wetter. But leaving wit aside, another three days, do you see - if we do not waste our time stopping at Malta - should place us well west of Pantellaria.’
They were indeed west of Pantellaria before the levanter, in its turn, died in half a dozen sullen howls: the two surgeons contemplated the shore and the little fishing port from the taffrail. ‘After long reflexion,’ said Stephen Maturin, ‘it appears to me that there is no great point in knowing whether the messengers have passed or not: our mission is the same in either case - to dissuade the Dey from shipping that which he does not yet possess. And with this wind Mr Aubrey assures me that nothing could have left Algiers, even if the Dey had the treasure in his care - a most unlikely event. He also states that it is extremely improbable that a houario could have survived such a tempest: a houario is not a xebec. Yet conceivably it might have taken shelter in the harbour over there,’ - nodding towards Pantellaria - ‘and since I think we had rather know than not know, I shall beg you to accompany the boat, which the purser is taking in, ostensibly for the purchase of horsehide, tallow, scourges and things of that kind, and ask whether there is any news of a Durazzo houario - your Italian is better than mine. And then, richer in knowledge, we can push on, passing by Cape Bon, which I long to see at this time of the year. You have no objection to climbing down into the boat?’
‘None in the least, dear colleague. No one can say that my spirit is affected by six-foot waves: and by the way, what is the difference between a houario and a xebec?’
‘Oh, there are so many regional variations, and without endless technical details it could not be made plain: but very roughly the xebec is longer, stronger, and most remarkably fleet. Dear colleague, here is the boat. Pray urge them to waste not a minute.’
They wasted not a minute, and Mr Candish, having bought hide and, with Dr Jacob’s help, two puncheons of the famous local wine, they returned: but empty-handed as far as news of the Durazzo houario was concerned. The captain of the port, who had sold them the leather and the wine, had no word of any such vessel calling or passing, and he very much doubted that so light a craft could have survived such a furious blow. However, he said, they need not be afraid: there would be no wind of any kind for at least three days, only very slight western airs, bringing a very welcome drizzle. If the gentlemen would like company while they lay off the island, he would be happy to send some young women.
His forecast was perfectly accurate: they lay off the island day after day, sometimes seeing it through the drizzle; and the frigate’s people spent their time making and mending, pointing ropes, re-leathering the jaws of booms and gaffs, and of course fishing over the side. The small rain spoilt dancing on the fo’c’sle, but there was a good deal of shipvisiting, and Jack and as many of his officers who could be fitted round
