good man,' I said,'I cannot leave the bridge.'
"'Ye canna' leave the bridge! What for, then?'
"'Because,' I said, 'I must keep a look-out and see that that man on the forecastle-head does the same. If he were to see me leave the bridge, the chances are he would get careless and sit down and go to sleep, and we might run into something, and probably sink ourselves or somebody else and lose a lot of lives.'
"By this time I heard loud voices and awful oaths coming from the after-end of the ship, so says I, 'This must be put a stop to, but I cannot leave here without somebody takin' my place. You must take it, and walk across and across as I am doing, so that that fellow on the look-out will think it's me.'
"'Aa'm not pertikler what aa dee, mister, if ye ony get thor differences settled before ye come up. Aa nivor heerd sic swearin'.'
"'Very well,' said I; 'you do what I've told you to do. Walk steadily to and fro, and I'll go and see what can be done.'
"When I got down below they were still wrangling, but I soon made peace with them, and they asked me to have a hand with them. I had a look on deck. It was a fine moonlight night, and nothing seemed to be in the way, so I began to play, and forgot all about the fellow on the bridge, and everything else for that matter, until I heard four bells go. This reminded me, so I stopped short, went on to the poop, and the other fellows came up with me. I was chaffing them about their row, and I heard the look-out man call out, 'A red light on the port bow, sir!' I saw we were going a long way clear, so took no notice; but the miner on the bridge increased his pace. In less than a minute the look-out man called out again, 'A red light on the port bow,' and got no answer. I thought to myself, 'What's going to be the upshot of this?' when the man called out again, sharply this time, 'A red light on the port bow!' The miner quite excitedly shouted at the top of his voice, 'Blaw the b——y thing oot, then, and let's hear ne mair aboot it!'"
At this conclusion the two captains laughed heartily, and so did Yaunie. Then all at once Farquarson began as suddenly as he had left off—
"Now, let us make up our minds never to broach running the gauntlet again in Russian waters, for they're devils to listen, and you never know where they are. Why, I've seen them at the time of the war crawlin' and sneakin' about all over, lying on the sofa in the billiard-rooms, and come and ask you to play in good English. Sometimes the impudent villains would come and barefacedly sit down at the same table where you were having a meal, and begin speakin' and get you to say something disrespectful about Russia and their Tzar, and lots of poor fellows were asked to leave the country for it. Talk about despotism and bribery! Well, I've seen some of their goings on. What did they do when the poor Turks that were taken prisoners when Plevna fell marched into Reval? A few of us cheered them, and the Russians got quite annoyed about it, and hustled us about as though we were common thieves, and threatened to run us into their filthy gaol. My word, how things have altered since the days when you could kill a Russian and nobody cared a brass button! But now—well, there's no word to express it."
"Ah! they're a cruel, merciless lot," interjected Captain S—; "but I think you are getting excited, Farquarson, so you better cease talking about them."
"It is time I was getting up to the city. They are rattling it into her. She'll be loaded in a jiffy, and I've much to do."
"Very well," said the bluff skipper, "get away. And it's understood that mum's the word; but mind you're not through the wood yet. What do you say, Yaunie?"
"I say you no speak so loud or so much. It is better not."
"Very well, old skin-the-goat," said Farquarson playfully; "I suppose I am a bit noisy."
He then jumped aboard his vessel, and invited the trusty pilot to follow him so that they might work out a scheme that would thwart any possibility of a raid being made on the Claverhouse. He prided himself on being fertile in strategy, and certainly his notions were not those of an ordinary person. His confidences were given to Yaunie without any reserve. First, he suggested inveigling the raiders from S——'s vessel to his own, getting them down below and filling them full of champagne or whisky, whichever they preferred; and in the event of their remaining on board his friend's ship, they were to be made drunk there, and that being accomplished, the vessel was to be unmoored and taken to sea with them aboard, and they were to be landed or cast adrift in an open boat. The recital of these dare-devil propositions caused Yaunie's face to wear a careworn look, and when asked what he thought of it he said—
"Well, I try to tink, bit it is impossible. You speak what cannot happen. If you do what you say, how can you come back here? No, no; that must not be. I have better plan. No trouble, no get drunk, no run off with officers, no put him in boat; but leave it me: I settle everyting, suppose trouble come."
"Agreed again, old cockaloram. I'm only saying what I'd do. As I said before, you can do as you like, but I prefer giving these fellows 'what cheer!' I says again, what business have they to interfere with Englishmen carryin' on their business in their own way? I say they had no right to put a blockade on, and England should see that her subjects are duly protected."
This eloquent pronouncement of patriotism, with comic gesture added, excited the fiery dissent of the critical Levantine.
"Yes!" he retorted; "you tink everyting foreign should be for English. You swagger off with other people's country and say, 'This mine.' You like old J——b and G——d; they speak all the time same as you. English, English, everyting English! an' I say what for you stay? I Greek, an' I stay because Russia better for me."
This was said partly in jest and partly in good-natured earnestness, for Yaunie was a student of English characteristics. Farquarson explained that he would have to go to the Custom-house, and then to see his agents. Yaunie, with a significant look and gesture, warned him not to speak too much to port officers, bade him good-morning, said he would call back again in the afternoon, jumped on to the stage and went ashore.
It was late in the afternoon before Captain S—— got down to the docks. His steamer was loaded and ready for sea. At the quay, close to the stern of the vessel, Mrs. C——, with her daughter, was seated in a drosky. She explained that they had come to say good-bye, and to convey a message from Patrovish that he, Yaunie, and some officers were aboard Captain Farquarson's vessel. "He commissioned me to say that you were to slip out of the harbour quietly to avoid trouble, as he had reason to believe that there was something going on, and you might be stopped. Meanwhile, they are doing some entertaining for your benefit, so I will not detain you longer. Good-bye, and we hope to see you again soon."
The captain made haste aboard, and gave instructions to cast off the moorings. The Claverhouse glided quietly out of the harbour, and in less than an hour she was steaming fall speed towards the Bosphorus. The two captains did not meet again for several months, and when they did, Farquarson gave a vivid account of the development and ultimate success of what he termed the plot to extricate S—— from the possibility of being detained or heavily fined.
"I assure you," said he, "they were on the scent. They asked if I was the man who was on the gunboat when the English steamer ran over the mines. I swore by all that was holy that I didn't know what they were talking about. Then Yaunie and Patrovish asked them in Russian to have some refreshment aboard my ship, and they kicked up a devil of a row when they found you had gone without saying good-bye. Yaunie swore it was to cheat the pilotage, and Patrovish said he couldn't have believed it of you. I said you always were a bowdikite, and that you were putting on 'side.' The Russians were very jolly. They had a thimbleful or two of whisky, which made them talk a lot. We had a good laugh after they went away, and Patrovish said it was a good job you were gone, because they would have been sure to have caused trouble. Yaunie wasn't sure, but I was on C——'s
