CHAPTER XXXVII.
SOME SUPERIOR OLD "LONDON DOCK" FROM THE WINE-COOLERS OF NEPTUNE.
We had just slid into pleasant weather, drawing near to the Tropics,when all hands were thrown into a wonderful excitement by an event thateloquently appealed to many palates.
A man at the fore-top-sail-yard sung out that there were eight or tendark objects floating on the sea, some three points off our lee-bow.
"Keep her off three points!" cried Captain Claret, to thequarter-master at the _cun_.
And thus, with all our batteries, store-rooms, and five hundred men,with their baggage, and beds, and provisions, at one move of a roundbit of mahogany, our great-embattled ark edged away for the strangers,as easily as a boy turns to the right or left in pursuit of insects inthe field.
Directly the man on the top-sail-yard reported the dark objects to behogsheads. Instantly all the top-men were straining their eyes, indelirious expectation of having their long _grog fast_ broken at last,and that, too, by what seemed an almost miraculous intervention. It wasa curious circumstance that, without knowing the contents of thehogsheads, they yet seemed certain that the staves encompassed thething they longed for.
Sail was now shortened, our headway was stopped, and a cutter waslowered, with orders to tow the fleet of strangers alongside. The mensprang to their oars with a will, and soon five goodly puncheons laywallowing in the sea, just under the main-chains. We got overboard theslings, and hoisted them out of the water.
It was a sight that Bacchus and his bacchanals would have gloated over.Each puncheon was of a deep-green color, so covered with minutebarnacles and shell-fish, and streaming with sea-weed, that it neededlong searching to find out their bung-holes; they looked like venerableold _loggerhead-turtles._ How long they had been tossing about, andmaking voyages for the benefit of the flavour of their contents, no onecould tell. In trying to raft them ashore, or on board of somemerchant-ship, they must have drifted off to sea. This we inferred fromthe ropes that length-wise united them, and which, from one point ofview, made them resemble a long sea-serpent. They were _struck_ intothe gun-deck, where, the eager crowd being kept off by sentries, thecooper was called with his tools.
"Bung up, and bilge free!" he cried, in an ecstasy, flourishing hisdriver and hammer.
Upon clearing away the barnacles and moss, a flat sort of shell-fishwas found, closely adhering, like a California-shell, right over one ofthe bungs. Doubtless this shell-fish had there taken up his quarters,and thrown his own body into the breach, in order the better topreserve the precious contents of the cask. The by-standers werebreathless, when at last this puncheon was canted over and a tin-potheld to the orifice. What was to come forth? salt-water or wine? But arich purple tide soon settled the question, and the lieutenant assignedto taste it, with a loud and satisfactory smack of his lips, pronouncedit Port!
"Oporto!" cried Mad Jack, "and no mistake!"
But, to the surprise, grief, and consternation of the sailors, an ordernow came from the quarter-deck to strike the "strangers down into themain-hold!" This proceeding occasioned all sorts of censoriousobservations upon the Captain, who, of course, had authorised it.
It must be related here that, on the passage out from home, theNeversink had touched at Madeira; and there, as is often the case withmen-of-war, the Commodore and Captain had laid in a goodly stock ofwines for their own private tables, and the benefit of their foreignvisitors. And although the Commodore was a small, spare man, whoevidently emptied but few glasses, yet Captain Claret was a portlygentleman, with a crimson face, whose father had fought at the battleof the Brandywine, and whose brother had commanded the well-knownfrigate named in honour of that engagement. And his whole appearanceevinced that Captain Claret himself had fought many Brandywine battlesashore in honour of his sire's memory, and commanded in many bloodlessBrandywine actions at sea.
It was therefore with some savour of provocation that the sailors heldforth on the ungenerous conduct of Captain Claret, in stepping inbetween them and Providence, as it were, which by this lucky windfall,they held, seemed bent upon relieving their necessities; while CaptainClaret himself, with an inexhaustible cellar, emptied his Madeiradecanters at his leisure.
But next day all hands were electrified by the old familiar sound--solong hushed--of the drum rolling to grog.
After that the port was served out twice a day, till all was expended.