ship. It had been
telegraphed from on shore that one of the junior lords of the Admiralty
was coming on board immediately. There was blank dismay in our berth.
How could my mess-mates possibly go on the quarter-deck, and assist to
receive the dignified personage? Much did I enjoy the immunity that, I
supposed, being a prisoner gave to me.

The portentous message came down that "the young gentlemen, in full
uniform, are expected to be on the quarter-deck to receive the lord of
the Admiralty." All the consolation that I could give was quoting to
them the speech of Lady Macbeth to her guests--"Go, nor stand upon the
order of your going." The firing of the salute from the main-deck guns
announced the approach, and the clanking of the muskets of the marines
on the deck, after they had presented arms, the arrival of the lord
plainly to me, in my darksome habitation. Ten minutes had not elapsed,
during which I was hugging myself with the thought that all this pomp
and circumstance could not annoy me, when, breathless with haste, there
rushed one, two, three, four messengers, each treading on the heels of
the other, telling me the lord of the Admiralty wished to see me
immediately in the captain's cabin.

"Me! see me! What, in the name of all that is disastrous, can he want
with me?" I would come when I had made a little alteration in my dress.
Trusting that he was as impatient as all great men usually are when
dealing with little ones, I hoped by dilatoriness to weary him out, and
thus remain unseen. Vain speculation! A minute had scarcely elapsed,
when one of the lieutenants came down, in a half-friendly,
half-imperative manner, to acquaint me that I _must_ come up
immediately.

The scene that ensued--how can I sufficiently describe it? Had I not
been sustained by the impudence of desperation, I should have jumped
overboard directly I had got on deck. I found myself, not well knowing
by what kind of locomotion I got there, in the fore-cabin, where was
spread a very handsome collation, round which were assembled some
fifteen officers, all in their full-dress uniforms, in the midst of
which a feeble, delicate-looking, and excessively neatly dressed old
gentleman stood, in plain clothes. His years must have been far beyond
seventy. He was fidgety, indeed, to that degree that would induce you
to think that he was a little palsied.

I cannot answer for the silent operations that take place in other men's
minds,