‘Not at all, John Daniel: yet just tell me succinctly about naval prize-money, will you, and then I must go. I have heard of it for ever, but I have never retained the principles.’
‘Well, sir, the captain has two eighths of the value of the prize; but if he is acting under a flag-officer he must give the admiral a third of what he receives: then the lieutenants, master and captain of the Marines have equal shares of one eighth: then the Marine lieutenants, surgeon, purser, bosun, gunner, carpenter, master mates and chaplain, equal shares in another eighth; while everybody else shares the remaining half, though not equally, the reefers having four and a half shares each, the lower warrant-officers like the cook and so on, three; the seamen, able and ordinary, one and a half, landmen and servants one, and boys half a share each.’
‘Thank you, Mr Daniel: I shall try to keep it in my mind. At present I shall bid Poll make you comfortable: give you good night, now.’
Cape Bon had been a disappointment. Algiers and the Bay of Algiers were not. Commodore Aubrey sent one of the boys wished upon him in Gibraltar by former shipmates a short-legged, long-armed little creature, very like an ape- to rouse Stephen Maturin at the crack of dawn and to beg him to come at once, in his nightshirt or a dressing-gown or whatever he pleased, but anyhow at once.
‘Lord, how brilliant,’ he cried, blundering up the ladder to the quarterdeck, his eyes half-closed against the light. Tack gave him a hand up the last step, saying, ‘Look! Look!’
‘Where away?’
‘On the starboard quarter - about a cable’s length on the starboard quarter.’
Powerful hands gently swivelled him about, his nightshirt flying in the breeze, and there he saw a fine great company of egrets, snowy white, so near that he could make out their yellow feet; and somewhat beyond them another even larger band, all flying with a steady concentration northwards, presumably to some Balearic swamp. And with the first group there flew a glossy ibis, absurdly black in this light and company, and continually uttering a discontented cry, something between a croak and a quack: from time to time it darted across the path of the leading birds with a louder shriek.
Stephen had the impression that the ibis was extremely indignant at the egrets’ conduct: and indeed so late a migration, well on in the month of May, was unusual, unwise, against all established custom. Yet the beautiful white birds would not attend, and presently the ibis left them with a final screech and hurried as fast as it could to the farther group, which might, perhaps, listen to its advice.
Stephen never knew the outcome, for Jack led him to the starboard bow - the ship was ghosting along under courses and a forestaysail - and from here he beheld a vast expanse of gloriously blue sea and a great convoy of merchantmen upon it, perhaps a hundred sail of ships, British, Dutch, Scandinavian and American, gathered from Tripoli, Tunis and further east, with the two corvettes and the sloop that Jack had sent to protect them strung out to windward, while still farther off a practised eye could make out some long, low-built corsairs waiting their opportunity.
‘That gives you some notion of the trade, don’t you find?’ asked Jack. ‘Prodigious. But come over this side, and you will see another sight.’ He held back the forestaysail and guided Stephen to the larboard cathead, where they stood gazing across an even deeper blue expanse of sea to the African shore. The Surprise had already opened the bay entirely and now the sun was lighting first the mountains behind the town and on either side - brilliant green after the spring rains - and then in a few moments the splendid topmost buildings on the tall, symmetrically rounded hill upon which the city was built. ‘That is the Kasbah, the Dey’s palace,’ said Jack.
Minute by minute the brilliant light moved down, showing innumerable white flat-roofed houses built very close together; towering minarets; occasional alleys, barely a single street; some blanks that would probably be great squares if one could see them from above. Row after row of houses going down and down to the prodigious great stone wall, the port, the huge mole and the inner harbour.
‘It is exceedingly impressive: there is a strange beauty here,’ said Stephen. ‘I long to be better acquainted with it.’
‘Yes,’ said Jack. ‘And when we are a little closer I shall ask Dr Jacob to go ashore, wait on the British consul to make sure that if, in command of a King’s ship, I salute the castle, the salute will be returned. And if the answer is yes, which is close on certain, whether he can arrange for you to see the Dey as soon as possible.’
‘If you do not mind, brother, I had rather go myself, with Dr Jacob to show me the way. I have a note that must be delivered into the consul’s own hands. You will let me have Ringle, for greater stateliness?’
‘Of course I shall: but in that case you may have to wait for the land-breeze in the evening, to carry you out again. Algiers bay is almost always a lee-shore.’
In spite of Jack’s words, it was the stately Ringle that bore them in, on the understanding that her jolly-boat should pull out as early as possible with the consul’s answer about the salute, Ringle waiting at
