‘You take the Moors’ weapons and pile them at the end of the mole, tie their hands, and I shall signal the schooner to send in a boat full of fresh water and something to eat.’
The British subjects uttered a hoarse discordant cheer; Jack fired three or four times at random to keep up the tension; and the weapons came piling up on the mole.
Just off the lagoon the Surprises, overflowing with satisfaction and wit, carried out the small heavy, heavy, wonderfully heavy little chests from the galley to those places deep in the Surprise where their weight would be most useful as ballast. The Moorish prisoners, reasonably fed and watered,were stowed in the cable-tiers. They were, at least for the time being, very low in their spirits: indeed morally destroyed: but Jack had seen strange surprising changes in men freed from mortal danger: he reckoned with the resilience of the human spirit, particularly the maritime human spirit; and having, with his officers, fixed the ship’s position with the utmost accuracy he set her course for the nearest point in Africa, where he meant to put them ashore.
For the moment however he and Stephen were breakfasting in comfort, gazing with some complacency at the island Cranc. ‘Jacob tells me,’ said Stephen, ‘that in Moorish Arabic the place is now called Fortnight Island. It had been a moderately prosperous fishing and corsair port - dates, carobs, pearl oysters, coral - hence the mole and the ruins - until the time of, I think, Mulei Hassan; but then a new eruption destroyed the few springs, broke the aqueducts and cisterns and slowly liberated that noxious vapour we observed. It seems that you can breathe it for fourteen days with nothing but headaches and gastric pains; but on the fifteenth you die.’
‘I beg pardon for interrupting you, sir,’ said Harding, ‘but you desired me to tell you when all was aboard. The last chest has just been handed down.’ As he spoke his usually grave face spread in a most infectious smile: that last case, carried staggering by strong men, weighed well over a hundred and twelve pounds, and Harding, though not an avaricious or grasping man, knew just how many ounces of that mass belonged to him as prize-money.
Patriotism, promotion, and prize-money have been described as the three masts of the Royal Navy. It would be illiberal to assert that prize-money was by any means the most important, but as they left the flat shore north of Ras Uferni in Morocco, where they had at last disembarked their prisoners after a tedious voyage with contrary winds, it was certainly the subject still most frequently discussed.
‘If you people will sail the galley into Gibraltar with us,’ said Captain Aubrey to the slaves, ‘You shall share as able seamen.
‘Why, thankee, sir,’ said Hallows, their spokesman. ‘We take it uncommon handsome: and I promise we shall do our duty by your prize.’
‘That’s right,’ said his mates, and indeed they handled the galley very well. But they did think it part of their duty to run alongside the frigate on three separate occasions, begging the officer of the watch to shorten sail. ‘There are too many eggs in this one basket to risk anything at all,’ was the usual formula, thought to be both conciliating and witty.
Jack was on deck the last time they did this, and he said, ‘Hallows, if you do not keep your station I shall turn you ashore,’ with such conviction that although they very nearly came within hail to tell the frigate that there was an enormous great fire on the very top of Cape Trafalgar, they thought better of it and kept the news for Ringle.
Indeed there were fires all along the European side of the Straits, exciting unspeakable wonder aboard the three vessels: but the sight of Gibraltar itself ablaze with innumerable bonfires, the harbour filled with ships dressed over all, bands playing, trumpets blowing and drums beating madly checked all conjecture, and Surprise, having made her number, wafted silently to her usual place, with her companions.
‘The flag-lieutenant, sir, if you please,’ said a midshipman at his side.
‘Give you joy of your splendid prize, sir,’ cried the flag lieutenant. ‘By God, you could never have timed t better.’
‘Thank you, Mr Betterton,’ said Jack. ‘But pray tell me what is afoot?’
The flag-lieutenant stared for a moment, and then he gravely replied, ‘Napoleon is beat, sir. There was a great battle at Waterloo in the Low Countries, and the Allies won.’
‘Then it is I that give you joy, sir,’ said Jack, shaking his hand. ‘Have you any details?’
‘No, sir. But the courier is arrived and the Commanderin-Chief will have them. When your number was reported he bade me remind you of your engagement: Lady Barmouth has taken the coach to fetch the Keiths.’
‘Please tell Lord Barmouth that Dr Maturin and I shall be charmed to wait upon him, above all on such a day.’
‘There you are at last, Aubrey,’ cried the Commander-in-Chief, obviously overcome by the events and obviously somewhat
