“Yes,” said the Pilot, “I know very well that you have all good hearts, and that you are desirous of giving me all the consolation you can.”

“Would you not have acted, under similar circumstances, precisely as we suppose Captain Littlestone to have done?”

“I admit that the thing, is not only possible, but also that, if alive, it is just what he would have done.  I trust, if it be so, that when he gets into port he will report me keel-hauled?”

“Keel-hauled?”

“Yes, I mean dead.  It is a thousand times better to pass for a dead man than a deserter.”

“The wisest course he could pursue, it appears to me, would be to hold his tongue—­probably you will not be missed.”

“Ah! you think that her Majesty’s blue jackets can disappear in that way, like musk-rats?  But no such thing.  When the captain in command at the station hails on board, every man and boy of the crew, from the powder-monkey to the first-lieutenant, are mustered in pipe-clay on the quarter-deck, and there, with the ship’s commission in his hand, every one must report himself as he calls over the names.

“Then the captain will tell the simple truth.”

“Well, you see, truth has nothing at all to do with the rules of the service, the questions printed in the orderly-book only will be asked, and he may not have an opportunity of stating the facts of the case; besides, discipline on board a ship in commission could not be maintained if irregularities could be patched up by a few words from the captain.  When it is found that I had been left on shore, the questions will be, ‘Was the Nelson in want of repairs?’ ‘No.’  ’Did she require water?’ ‘No.’  ‘Provisions?’ ‘No.’  ’Then Willis has deserted?’ ‘Yes.’  And his condemnation will follow as a matter of course.”

“In that case, the Captain would be more to blame than you are.”

“So he would, and it is for that reason I hope he will be able to show by the log that I was seized with cholera, tied up in a sack, and duly thrown overboard with a four-pound shot for ballast.”

“I cannot conceive,” said Becker, “that the discipline of any service can be so cruelly unreasonable as you would have us believe.”

“No, perhaps you think that just before the anchor is heaved, and the ship about to start on a long voyage, the cabin boys are asked whether they have the colic—­that lubbers, who wish to back out have only to say the word, and they are free—­that the pilot may go a-hunting if he likes, and that the officers may stay on shore and amuse themselves in defiance of the rules of the service?  In that case the navy would be rather jolly, but not much worth.”

When Willis was once fairly started there was no stopping him.

“Dead,” he continued; “that is to say, without a berth, pay, or even a name, nothing!  My wife will have the right to marry again, my little Susan will have another father, and I shall only be able to breathe by stealth, and to consider that as more than I deserve.  You must admit that all this is rather a poor look-out a-head.”