Back to his coding, the fires dazzling in his eyes, and he struck out several lines in which the sequence was mistaken. To convey the perfectly convincing, ingenuous, nature of her words was, he feared, beyond his powers; but certainly their exact, inconsequential train might do something towards it.
When next he looked up he realized that for some time he had been hearing neither song nor drums but a confused din not unlike the roar of a bull-fight: it was in fact a boxing-match. He had heard of the sport for ever, but curiously enough he had never seen a formal contest - nothing more than scuffles among the boys in earlier commissions or dockside brawls. Yet this appeared to be a singular battle. He took up his small spyglass, never far from hand, and his first astonished impression was confirmed. There were two fine upstanding young women setting about one another with bare fists. Violent, wholehearted blows, and judging from the cries of the onlookers, well given and well received. Clarissa was laughing; the little girls hardly knew how they liked it; some of the seamen and all of the islanders backed one girl or the other with the greatest zeal. Yet at the very climax, and for no reason that Stephen could see, when neither was giving an inch, the old chief beat the kava-bowl, an attendant blew on a conch, the chief's sister intervened, the two young women fell back and walked off, one rubbing her cheek, the other her bosom: there was a cry of disappointment from the seamen who had enjoyed it, but almost immediately afterwards, from one end of the line to the other, came baked hogs, baked dogs, fishes and fowls wrapped in leaves, yams, plantains, breadfruit.
Stephen's watch uttered its tiny silver chime, and looking at the pile of sheets he had so inconsiderately filled he said 'Holy Mary, Mother of God, I shall never get all this receded in time: and already my poor boiled eyes are dropping out of my head.' He put on his green shade, wiped away his tears, changed his spectacles and opened the new code-book.
He did not look up again until a great howl plucked him from his task, his mechanical work. There was Awkward Davies flat on his face with a burly islander sitting on him, pinning him down with an arm-breaking hold. Davies presumably gave some sign, uttered some word, for the islander got off, helped him up, and led him back to his friends in the kindest way.
Again Stephen's watch struck and while it was still striking the first rocket soared up. 'Oooh,' cried all the people, and 'Aah!' followed by cheers as it burst.
The second rocket, not a quarter of a page later, was followed by nautical cries and then by the arrival of the boats. Some few hands had contrived to get drunk on the chief's kava, but most came aboard very quietly, welcomed in a low voice by the harbour-watch.
When his sheep had been counted Jack looked into the cabin. 'Am I interrupting you?' he asked from the doorway.
'Never in life, my dear. I am only copying: let me finish my group and I am with you.' Many years before this Jack, no fool at sea, had perceived that Stephen was more than a ship's surgeon, more even than a man whose political advice would be sought by a captain where relations with foreigners were concerned; and gradually his close connexion with intelligence had become so evident that there was nothing strange about his coding messages, sometimes of surprising length.
The group finished, Stephen put a small lead weight upon the place and said 'I trust you had an agreeable evening.'
'Very agreeable indeed, thank you. The chief did the thing handsomely, uncommon handsomely: and then nobody ran, there were no harsh words, the only fighting was in play, and we ate like aldermen - such turtle, Stephen! But I am afraid Bonden and Davies will need your attention in the morning; and Emily was sick.'
'What happened to them?'
'Bonden boxed with an islander, and his nose is knocked sideways: Davies was cruelly wrenched and twisted in wrestling; and somebody told Emily how the kava she had drunk was made.'
'Then she is now wiser than I am.'
'Why, they sit round an enormous pot, chewing kava-root, and when it is chewed enough they spit it in, going on until there are gallons of it; and then they let it ferment. The notion made her vomit; though it is true she had already eaten an extraordinary amount of sugar-cane, and was already looking green about the gills.'
'She may survive.'
'I am just going to write Sophie something of a letter before turning in. Have you any message?'
'Love, of course. I had hoped to write to Diana, but I doubt I shall have time for anything more than the briefest note.'
'Then I shall not keep you a moment longer,' said Jack, moving over to a table at the far end of the broad cabin. Their pens scratched away bell after muffled belclass="underline" at one point Stephen heard Jack tiptoe off to his sleeping cabin; and slowly the first code turned into the perhaps impenetrable second.
At last, when his eyes could not bear the darting from one page to another any more, he took off his spectacles, covered his eyes with his hands and pressed hard for several minutes. While he was in this state of coruscating darkness he heard the bosun's pipe and his fine determined voice 'All hands unmoor ship. All hands, there. Tumble up, tumble up, you dormice,' and when he took his hands away he saw the first hint of coming day on the shore.
With a fresh urgency he receded the words. 'How it can be accomplished I do not know, but I shall try to get her back to England with another copy of this: may I rely upon you to protect her? Little do I know of the law, but although she is now married to a naval officer I fear she may be molested as having returned before her time. She has already given us this piece of information, one of the most valuable that has ever come into our hands; she is potentially a valuable source of more, if handled with extreme discretion; and in any event I have a great kindness for her. Immunity would be politically sound; privately obliging. Lastly, my dear J, may I beg you to send the enclosed scribble down to my wife?'
All this last hour there had been confused roaring and bawling, beyond the reach of his concentrated attention. Now as he ranged his papers the cry of 'Heave and awash' came from forward: the cabin was already full of light. Mr Adams knocked at the door: 'Captain's compliments, sir, and if you have anything for Sydney, we should wrap it now. I have his own dispatch still open, and as soon as Mr Wainwright has seen us through the channel he will take it back to the Daisy.'
'Will you clap on to that God-damn catfall, there? Are you asleep?' asked Captain Aubrey, very strong and clear, very far from pleased.
Dr Maturin and Mr Adams looked at one another, startled: they had both of them heard many more orders than were usual in unmooring ship, more, louder and angrier, but none so severe as this; and in a low tone Stephen, waving his last sheet, said 'Let us allow the ink to dry, and I am with you.'