Now the captain of the _Vulture_ was Billy's cousin by marriage. Reginald Bazalgette. Twenty years ago, when the captain was a boy, they were great friends: of late Bazalgette had seen less of him; still it seems strange he did not recognise him in his own ship. But one or two causes co-operated to prevent that. In the first place, the mind when turned in one direction is not so sharp in another; and Captain Bazalgette had been told to look for David in a merchant ship bound for the East Indies. In the next place, insanity alters the expression of the face wonderfully, and the captain of a frigate runs his eye over four hundred sailors at muster, or a hundred at work, not to examine their features, but their dress and bearing at the one, and their handiness at the other. The worst piece of luck was that Mrs. Dodd did not know David called himself William Thompson. So there stood "William Thompson" large as life on the ship's books, and nobody the wiser. Captain Bazalgette had a warm regard and affection for Mrs. Dodd, and did all he could. Indeed, he took great liberties: he stopped and overhauled several merchant ships for the truant; and, by-the-by, on one occasion William Thompson was one of the boat's crew that rowed a midshipman from the _Vulture_ alongside a merchant ship to search for David Dodd. He heard the name and circumstance mentioned in the boat, but the very name was new to him. He remembered it, but only from that hour; and told his loving tyrant, Georgie White, they had been overhauling a merchant ship and looking for one David Dodd.
It was about Midsummer the _Vulture_ anchored off one of the South Sea islands, and sent a boat ashore for fruit. Billy and his dearly beloved little tyrant, Georgie White, were among the crew. Off goes Georgie to bathe, and Billy sits down on the beach with a loving eye upon him. The water was calm: but the boy with the heedlessness of youth stayed in it nearly an hour: he was seized with cramp and screamed to his comrades.
They ran, but they were half a mile from the boat. Billy dashed into the water and came up with Georgie just as he was sinking for the last time;the boy gripped him; but by his great strength he disentangled himself and got Georgie on his shoulders, and swam for the shore. Meantime the sailors got into the boat, and rowed hastily towards them.
Now Billy was undermost and his head under water at times, and Georgie, some thought, had helped strangle him by gripping his neck with both arms. Anyway, by the boy's account, just as they were getting into shallow water, Billy gave a great shriek and turned over on his back; and Georgie paddled with his hands, but Billy soon after this sunk like a dead body while the boat was yet fifty yards off. And Georgie screamed and pointed to the place, and the boat came up and took Georgie in; and the water was so clear that the sailors saw Billy lie motionless at the bottom, and hooked him with a boat hook and drew him up; but his face came up alongside a deadly white, with staring eyes, and they shuddered and feared it was too late.
They took him into a house and stripped him, and rubbed him, and wrapped him in blankets, and put him by the hot fire. But all would not do.
Then, having dried his clothes, they dressed the body again and laid him in the boat, and cast the Union Jack over him, and rowed slowly and unwillingly back to the ship, Georgie sobbing and screaming over the body, and not a dry eye in the boat.
The body was carried up the side, and uncovered, just as Mrs. Dodd saw in her dream. The surgeon was sent for and examined the body: and then the grim routine of a man-of-war dealt swiftly with the poor skipper. He was carried below to be prepared for a sailor's grave. Then the surgeon walked aft and reported formally to the officer of the watch the death by drowning of William Thompson. The officer of the watch went instantly to the captain in his cabin and reported the death. The captain gave the stereotyped order to bury him at noon next day; and the body was stripped that night and sewed up in his hammock, with a portion of his clothes and bedding to conceal the outline of the corpse, and two cannon balls at his feet; and so the poor skipper was laid out for a watery grave, and covered by the Union Jack.
I don't know whether any of my amorous young readers are much affected by the catastrophe I have just related. If not, I will just remind them that even Edward Dodd was prepared to oppose the marriage of Julia and Alfred, if any serious ill should befall his father at sea, owing to Alfred's imprudent interference in rescuing him from Drayton House.