"Oho! we says goodby, But never pipes our eye, Tho' we leaves Sue, Poll, and Kitty all behind us; And if we drops our bones Down along o' Davy Jones, Why, they'll come and axe the mermaids for to find us."

"And what took ye, Mister Supercargo, to try a fall with the fourteen stoner?"

"Oh, I was helping a friend."

"Ay, an' a friend was helpin' him, an' here's a dozen of us a-helpin' of one supercargo."

"And I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Bulger. But what were you cheering for?"

"Cheerin'! Why, you wouldn't guess. 'Twas General Clive, matey."

"General Clive!"

"Ay, General Clive, him what chased the mounseers out o' Fort St. George with a marlinspike. I didn't know him at fust, comin' up behind t'other chap; but when I seed that purple coat with the gold lace and the face of him above it I knowed him. In course there was no more fight for us then; 'twas hip-hip hurray and up with our hangers. Clive, he smiled and touched his hat. 'Bulger,' says he, 'you en't much fatter--'"

"Does he know you, then?"

"Know me! In course he does. Wasn't I bo'sun's mate on board the Indiaman as took him east twelve year ago or more? That was afore I got this here button hook o' mine. Ay, I remember him well, a-trampin' up an' down deck with his hands in his pockets an' his mouth set tight an' his chin on his stock, never speakin' to a soul, in the doldrums if ever a lad was. Why, we all thought there was no more spirit in him than in the old wooden figurehead--leastways, all but me.

"'I may be wrong,' says I to old Tinsley the bo'sun, 'I may be wrong,'

says I, 'but I be main sure that young sad down-in-the-mouth have got a blazin' fire somewhere in his innards.'

"Ay, and time showed it. There was a lot of cadets aboard as poked fun at the quiet chap an' talked him over, a-winkin' their eyes. From talkin' it got to doin'. One day, goin' to his bunk, he found it all topsyversy, hair powder on his pillow, dubbin in his shavin' cup, salt pork wropt up in his dressin' gown. Well, I seed him as he comed on deck, an' his face were a sight to remember, pale as death, but his eyes a-blazin' like live coals in the galley fire. Up he steps to the cadet as was ringleader; how he knowed it I can't tell you, but he was sure of it, same as I always am.

"'Sir,' says he, quiet as a lamb, 'I want a word with you.'

"'Dear me!' says the cadet, 'have Mr. Clive found his voice at last?'

"'Yes, sir,' says Clive, 'he has, an' something else.'

"Cook happened to be passin' with a tray; a lady what was squeamish had been having her vittles on deck. Mr. Clive cotched up a basin o' pea soup what was too greasy for madam, and in a twink he sets it upside down on the cadet's head. Ay, 'twas a pretty pictur', the greasy yellow stuff runnin' down over his powdered hair an' lace collar an' fine blue coat.

My eye! there was a rare old shindy, the cadet cursin' and splutterin', the others laughin' fit to bust 'emselves. The cadet out with his fists, but there, 'twas no manner o' use. Mr. Clive bowled him over like a ninepin till he lay along deck all pea soup an' gore. There was no more baitin' o' Mr. Clive that voyage.

"'Bo'sun,' says I, 'what did I tell you? I may be wrong, but that young Mr. Bob Clive'll be a handful for the factors in Fort St. George.'"

While this narrative had been in progress, Desmond was walking with Bulger and his mates back towards the river.

"How was it you happened to be hereabouts so early?" asked Desmond. "I didn't expect to see you till tomorrow."

Bulger winked.

"You wouldn't axe if you wasn't a landlubber, meanin' no offense," he said. "'Tis last night ashore. We sailor men has had enough o' Waterman's Rests an' such like. To tell you the truth, we gave Mr. Toley the slip, and now we be goin' to have a night at the Crown an' Anchor."

"What about the press gang?"

"We takes our chance. They won't press me, sartin sure, 'cos o' my tenterhook here, and I'll keep my weather eye open, trust me for that."

Here they parted company. Desmond watched the jolly crew as they turned into the Minories, and heard their rollicking chorus:

"Ho! when the cargo's shipped, An the anchor's neatly tripped, An' the gals are weepin' bucketfuls o' sorrer, Why, there's the decks to swab, An' we en't a-goin' to sob, S'pose the sharks do make a meal of us tomorrer."

At the Goat and Compasses Diggle was awaiting him.

"Ha! my friend, you did it as prettily as a man could wish. Solitudo aliquid adjuvat, as Tully somewhere hath it, not foreseeing my case, when solitude would have been my undoing. I thank thee."

"Was the fellow attacking you?" asked Desmond.

"That to be sure was his intention. I was in truth in the very article of peril; I was blown; my breath was near gone, when at the critical moment up comes a gallant youth--subvenisti homini jam perdito--and with dexterous hand stays the enemy in his course."

"But what was it all about? Do you know the man?"

"Ods my life! 'twas a complete stranger, a man, I should guess, of hasty passions and tetchy temper. By the merest accident, at a somewhat crowded part, I unluckily elbowed the man into the kennel, and though I apologized in the handsomest way, he must take offense and seek to cut off my life, to extinguish me in primo aevo, as Naso would say. But Atropos was forestalled, my thread of life still falls uncut from Clotho's shuttle; still, still, my boy, I bear on the torch of life unextinguished."

Desmond felt that all this fine phrasing, this copious draft from classical sources, was intended to quench the ardor of his curiosity.

Diggle's explanation was very lame; the fury depicted on the pursuer's face could scarcely be due to a mere accidental jostling in the street.

And Diggle was certainly not the man to take to his heels on slight occasion. But, after all, Diggle's quarrels were his own concern. That his past life included secrets Desmond had long suspected, but he was not the first man of birth and education who had fallen into misfortune, and at all events he had always treated Desmond with kindness. So the boy put the matter from his thoughts.

The incident, however, left a sting of vexation behind it. In agreeing to accompany Diggle to the East, Desmond had harbored a vague hope of falling in with Clive and taking service, in however humble a capacity, with him. It vexed him sorely to think that Clive, whose memory for faces, as his recognition of Bulger after twelve years had shown, was very good, might recognize him, should they meet, as the boy who had played a part in what was almost a street brawl. Still, it could not be helped. Desmond comforted himself with the hope that Clive had taken no particular note of him, and, if they should ever encounter, would probably meet him as a stranger.

Chapter 8: In which several weeks are supposed to elapse; and our hero is discovered in the Doldrums.

The Good Intent lay becalmed in the doldrums. There was not wind enough to puff out a candle flame. The sails hung limp and idle from the masts, yet the vessel rolled as in a storm, heaving on a tremendous swell so violently that it would seem her masts must be shaken out of her. The air was sweltering, the sky the color of burnished copper, out of which the sun beat remorselessly in almost perpendicular beams. Pitch ran from every seam of the decks, great blisters like bubbles rose upon the woodwork; the decks were no sooner swabbed than--presto!--it was as though they had not known the touch of water for an age.

For three weeks she had lain thus. Sometimes the hot day would be succeeded by a night of terrible storm, thunder crashing around, the whole vault above lacerated by lightning, and rain pouring as it were out of the fissures in sheets. But in a day all traces of the storm would disappear, and if, meanwhile, a sudden breath of wind had carried the vessel a few knots on her southward course, the hopes thus raised would prove illusory, and once more she would lie on a sea of molten lead, or, still worse, would be rocked on a long swell that had all the discomforts of a gale without its compensating excitement.

The tempers of officers and crew had gone from bad to worse. The officers snapped and snarled at one another, and treated the men with even more than the customary brutality of the merchant marine of those days. The crew, lounging about half naked on the decks, seeking what shelter they could get from the pitiless sun, with little to do and no spirit to do anything, quarreled among themselves, growling at the unnecessary tasks set them merely to keep them from flying at each other's throats.

The Good Intent was a fine three-masted vessel of nearly four hundred tons, large for those days, though the new East Indiamen approached five hundred tons. When her keel was laid for the Honorable East India Company some twenty years earlier, she had been looked on as one of the finest merchant vessels afloat; but the buffeting of wind and wave in a score of voyages to the eastern seas, and the more insidious and equally destructive attacks of worms and dry rot, had told upon her timbers. She had been sold off and purchased by Captain Barker, who was one of the class known as "interlopers," men who made trading voyages to the East Indies on their own account, running the risk of their vessels being seized and themselves penalized for infringing the Company's monopoly.

She was now filled with a miscellaneous cargo: wine in chests, beer and cider in bottles, hats, worsted stockings, wigs, small shot, lead, iron, knives, glass, hubblebubbles, cochineal, sword blades, toys, coarse cloth, woolen goods--anything that would find a market among the European merchants, the native princes, or the trading classes of India. There was also a large consignment of muskets and ammunition. When Desmond asked the second mate where they were going, the reply was that if he asked no questions he would be told no lies.

On this sultry afternoon a group of seamen, clad in nothing but shirt and breeches, were lolling, lying crouching on the deck forward, circled around Bulger. Seated on an upturned tub, he was busily engaged in baiting a hook. Tired of the "Irish horse" and salt pork that formed the staple of the sailors' food, he was taking advantage of the calm to fish for bonitos, a large fish over two feet long, the deadly enemy of the beautiful flying fish that every now and then fell panting upon the deck in their mad flight from marine foes. The bait was made to resemble the flying fish itself, the hook being hidden by white rag stuffing, with feathers pricked in to counterfeit spiked fins.

As the big seaman deftly worked with iron hook and right hand, he spun yarns for the delectation of his mates. They chewed tobacco, listened, laughed, sneered, as their temper inclined them. Only one of the group gave him rapt and undivided attention--a slim youth, with hollow sunburnt cheeks, long bleached hair, and large gleaming eyes. His neck and arms were bare, and the color of boiled lobsters; but, unlike the rest, he had no tattoo marks pricked into his skin. His breeches were tatters, his striped shirt covered with party-colored darns.

"Ay, as I was saying," said Bulger, "'twas in these latitudes, on my last voyage but three. I was in a Bristol ship a-carryin' of slaves from Guinea to the plantations. Storms!--I never seed such storms nowhere; and contrariwise, calms enough to make a Quaker sick. In course the water was short, an' scurvy come aboard, an' 'twas a hammock an' round shot for one or the other of us every livin' day. As reg'lar as the mornin' watch the sharks came for their breakfast; we could see 'em comin' from all p'ints o' the compass; an' sure as seven bells struck there they was, ten deep, with jaws wide open, like Parmiter's there when there's a go of grog to be sarved out. We was all like the livin' skellington at Bartlemy Fair, and our teeth droppin' out that fast, they pattered like hailstones on the deck."

"How did you stick 'em in again?" interrupted Parmiter, anxious to get even with Bulger for the allusion to his gaping jaw. He was a thick set, ugly fellow, his face seamed with scars, his mouth twisted, his ears dragged at the lobes by heavy brass rings.

"With glue made out of albacores we caught, to be sure. Well, as I was saying, we was so weak there wasn't a man aboard could reach the maintop, an' the man at the wheel had two men to hold him up. Things was so, thus, an' in such case, when, about eight hells one arternoon, the lookout at the masthead--"

"Thought you couldn't climb? How'd he get there?" said the same skeptic.

"Give me time, Parmiter, and you'll know all about the hows an' whys, notwithstandin's and sobeits. He'd been there for a week, for why? 'cos he couldn't get down. We passed him up a quarter pint o' water and a biscuit or two every day by a halyard.

"Well, as I was sayin', all at once the lookout calls out, 'Land ho!'--leastways he croaked it, 'cos what with weakness and little water our throats was as dry as last year's biscuit.