It was clear to Jack that the Admiral was very fond of his grand-nephew and that he wished the boy to go the way he should, especially in the service line: this was very well, and Jack was entirely in favour of George's being guided in the right direction - he did a good deal of guiding youngsters himself, when he had time - but he did feel that the Admiral (who had no children of his own) exaggerated a little, and it did make him uneasy to find that he was being held up as a model. He did not mind the Admiral's saying 'that nodding rather than bowing when taking wine with a man was a vile habit among the young people of today' and then shortly afterwards directing a meaning glance, a glance that would have pierced a nine-inch plank, at the boy, who raised his glass, caught Jack's eye, and with a blush said 'The honour of a glass of wine with you, sir,' bowing until his nose touched the tablecloth. But he did not much care for being commended as an example of briskness; and he positively disliked it when Sir Francis observed that some officers had taken to putting RN on their visiting-cards, a pert and flippant thing to do, meaning nothing - that Captain Aubrey, however, did not put RN on his card, and that when Captain Aubrey wrote a letter to a fellow-officer he did not add a couple of foolish initials to the direction but the words 'of His Majesty's navy'. Captain Aubrey also wore his hat athwartships in the good old way, not fore and aft. These were only a few remarks in a general flood of conversation; the English traveller, who was very rich, and the prelate, who was very well with the King of the Two Sicilies, were not at all oppressed by a sense of rank - but they were enough to cause Jack's neighbours, post-captains of about his own seniority, a good deal of quiet pleasure.
Captain Aubrey was therefore by no means sorry when dinner was over and he was led to a small cabin where he found Mr Pocock and Stephen, already deep in the tortuous politics of the eastern end of the Mediterranean. They went through the main heads again for his benefit, and Mr Pocock observed 'In the present delicate state of affairs, with Mehemet Ali doing all he can to win Osman Pasha's confidence, there will be no difficulty about your journey overland; indeed, the official at Tina has shown great good will in assembling a competent number of pack animals, such as camels and asses; and of course your Turkish decoration, your chelengk, will make you seem a person of real importance. A person of even greater importance, that is to say. Yet even so it would be as well to keep out of Ibrahim's way, a froward, turbulent fellow, impatient of control; and of course any encounter with the roving Bedouin is to be avoided ? not that they are likely to attack so large and well-armed a party as yours: for I presume your men will march with their weapons well in evidence.' He then returned to the rise of Mehemet Ali and the fall of the beys, unfortunately backed by the English government; but he had scarcely slaughtered the last Mameluke before Sir Francis himself came in.
'Here are your orders, Captain Aubrey,' he said. 'They are short and to the point: I hate verbiage. Now I do not wish to hurry you away, but the last of the Dromedary's remaining stores will be on the wharf in half an hour, far earlier than was expected. Your first lieutenant, what is his name?'
'Mowett, sir. William Mowett, a very capable, active officer.'
'Aye, Mowett. He set all Surprise's people on work, rigging an extra pair of sheets and clearing the fore-hold. So if you choose to make any tender farewells on shore, now is the time.'
'Thank you, sir,' said Jack, 'but I believe I shall leave my farewells for my return and pull across directly: there is not a moment to lose."
'Quite right, Aubrey, quite right,' said the Admiral. 'And what is more, speed is the essence of attack. Goodbye to you, then, and I hope to see you again within a month or so, trailing clouds of glory and perhaps something more substantial too. Doctor, your humble servant.'
Once more the gig sped across the Grand Harbour, and as it sped Stephen observed, 'I had a very pleasant encounter this morning, on leaving the palace. Do you remember Mr Martin, the Reverend Mr Martin?'
'The one-eyed parson? That is to say, the clergyman who preached so well on the subject of quails in Worcester? Of course I do. A chaplain any first-rate would be proud of: and a great naturalist too, as I recall.'
'Just so. He met me as I was turning into the Strada Reale and carried me to Rizzio's, where we had an excellent dinner - octopodes and squids in all their interesting variety. His ship has been among the Greek islands, and being particularly interested in cephalopods he learnt to dive with the sponge-fishers of Lesina; but although he anointed his person with the best olive-oil, and put oil-saturated wool in his ears, and held a large piece of sponge, also soaked with oil, in his mouth, and clung to a heavy stone to carry him down, and although there were cephalopods in plenty, he found he could not stay on the sea-bed for more than forty-three seconds, which gave him pitifully little time to observe their ways or win their confidence, even if he could have seen them clearly which he could not, by reason of the circumambient water; and even then blood would gush from his ears, nose and mouth, while sometimes he would be hauled up insensible, so as to be obliged to be recovered with spirits of camphor. You may imagine, then, how interested he was, when I told him about my bell.'
'I am sure he was. I should like to see it again myself, some day.'
'So you shall. The bell is aboard the good Dromedary once more, and Mr Martin is there too, contemplating it. I had taken him out to show him its finer points after dinner; and it was there that your message found me."
'What in God's name is that machine doing aboard the Dromedary?' asked Jack.
'Sure I could not burden Captain Dundas with it; and I was not going to leave my valuable bell among those thieves at the dockyard. The master of the Dromedary was all complaisance: he was used to the bell, he said, and it was welcome aboard. And I must confess that if we should have any leisure..."
'Leisure!' cried Jack. 'If we are to be south of Ras Hameda by the full of next moon or before, there will be precious little leisure. Leisure, forsooth. Stretch out, there,' he called to the gig's crew. 'Pull hearty.'
The Dromedary had warped across to the dockyard; she was tied up alongside the wharf; and there was no sign, no sign at all of leisure, upon her decks or between them. Sailors carrying their bags, beds and hammocks ran across the brows like ants and vanished down the fore-hatchway, while up the after-hatchway ran others, those charged with cleaning out the holds, carrying huge bales of filth, bilge-soaked straw, light, bulky packing, and broken sproggins - which they threw overboard, together with improbable amounts of dust and spoilt flour. At the same time water was coming aboard, and barrels of beef, pork and wine and bags of biscuits and bales of slops, with Mr Adams, his steward and Jack-in-the-dust, the steward's assistant, skipping about them in a fine frenzy; while the crew of the transport, the Dromedaries proper, were extraordinarily busy about their own affairs, and the whole fore part of the ship rang with the hammering of the carpenter and his crew.
The diving-bell stood like some archaic idol at the main-hatch, but there was no Mr Martin by it; Stephen walked right round the bell as well as he could for the hurrying crowd, and on his second circuit he came face to face with Edward Calamy, a young gentleman belonging to the Surprise. Mr Calamy was technically a youngster, and in fact he had only been at sea a matter of months, coming aboard the Worcester at Plymouth, a pale, nervous little boy; but no one would have thought so from his present hard-bitten, commanding demeanour and his profusion of nautical terms. For some time past he had assumed a kindly, protective attitude towards Dr Maturin, and now he called out 'There you are, sir. I was looking for you. I have nabbed you a little cabin on the larboard side of the cuddy. Come along out of the way. Watch your step on those roban-staves. Mr Martin is down there; I took him; and so is all your dunnage.'