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Our next business was to become acquainted with the two marines who had carried our chests below, and who (as we proudly understood) were to be our body-servants. We were on deck again, and luckily out of hearing of our fellow-midshipmen, when these two menials came up to report themselves: and Hartnoll and I had just arrived at an amicable choice between them.

“Here, Bill,” said the foremost, advancing and pointing at me with a forefinger, “which’ll it be? If you don’t mind, I’ll take the red-headed one, to put me in mind o’ my gal.”

So on the whole we settled ourselves down very comfortably aboard the Melpomene: but the ship was not easy that day as a society, nor could be, with her commanding officer pacing to and fro like a bear in a cage. You will have seen the black bear at the Zoo, and noticed the swing of his head as he turns before ever reaching the end of his cage? Well just so– or very like it–the Melpomene’s first lieutenant kept swinging and chafing on the quarter-deck all that afternoon–or, to be precise, until six o’clock, when Captain Suckling came aboard in a shore-boat, and in his shore-going clothes.

He was a pleasant-faced man; clean-shaven, rosy-complexioned, grey-haired, with something of the air and carriage of a country squire; a pleasant-tempered man too, although he appeared to be in a pet of some sort, and fairly fired up when the first lieutenant (a little sarcastically, I thought) ventured to hope that he had been enjoying himself.

“Nothing of the sort, sir! It’s the first–” Captain Suckling checked himself. “I was going to say,” he resumed more quietly, “that it’s the first prize-fight I have ever attended and will be the last. But in point of fact there has been no fight.”

“Indeed, sir?” I heard the first lieutenant murmur compassionately.

“The men did not turn up; neither they nor their trainers. The whole meeting, in fact, was what is vulgarly called a bilk. But where is Sir John?”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“His Excellency–you have made him comfortable?”

“His Excellency, sir, has not turned up. In fact,” said the first lieutenant prettily, “I fancy that His Excellency, too, must have done what is–er–vulgarly termed a bilk.”

Captain Suckling stared from his lieutenant to the shore, and from the shore to the horizon.

“The boat waited no less than five hours for him yesterday, and in the end brought off his valet with some luggage. He gave us to understand that Sir John and his Secretary would follow in a shore-boat. This was twenty-four hours ago, and they have not appeared.”

“Extraordinary!”

“I have to report also,” said the first lieutenant, “that at seven o’clock, in accordance with orders, Mr. Fraser took a party ashore. The press has been active of late, and at first they found the whole town shy: in fact, sir, they met with no success at all until midnight, when, just as they were on the point of returning, they raided a house and brought off eight able-bodied fellows–as fine a lot, sir, physically, as you could wish to see. For their seamanship I am unable to answer, having had no opportunity to question them. To judge from his report Mr. Fraser handled the affair well, and brought them off expeditiously; and I am relieved to tell you that, so far, we have had no trouble from shore–not so much as an inquiry sent.”

“That is luck, indeed,” said Captain Suckling approvingly; “and a comfort to hear at the end of a day when everything has gone wrong. Fetch them up–that is, if they are sufficiently recovered; fetch them up, and when I’ve shifted these clothes I’ll have a look at them while daylight serves.”

The Captain went below: and five minutes later I saw the first of the prisoners haled up through the hatchway. It was the man in the double overcoat; but he had lost his colour, and he no sooner reached the deck than he lurched and sat down with a thud. Since no one helped him to rise, he remained seated, and gazed about him with a drugged and vacuous stare, while the light of the approaching sunset shimmered over his mother-of-pearl buttons.