Part 6 (1/2)
”Yes,” replied the pensioner; ”but, saddest of all, it was to know his poor wife had just coland to join him, and was aboard the _London_ at the very tiside the shi+p in the steam-pinnace in which he had , and liked by everybody--not only by his brother officers and equals, but by the one anywheres to win a sh, sir, look there, they're shutting up the dockyard gate!”
Such indeed was the case, showing that the afternoon was pretty nearly ”expended,” as they say in the service
”Ah! that co the business that brought me down here, for now I'the oft- evaded yarn ofservice, ”suppose you come home to my place and have a cup of tea, when you can tell ascar, eh?”
He he thatnothing else particularly to do, he accepted--whence this story
VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWO
WIND AND STEAM
When I had made the pensioner as co carefully to the wants of his innerthe s were cleared away, I gave a sort of inquiring cough, which he iin his yarn
”After serving a year in the _London_, as I told you before, sir,” he co about the bush, as many a landsman would have done, ”I was drafted on to an old cruiser called the _Dolphin_ She's been broken up now, like the old _London_, though I hear they've got a rare s called by the sa of is quite different and not the same vessel--remember that, sir, please, in case anybody should try to throw doubts on my yarn, as some of them sea-lawyers will”
”I assure you,” said I to encourage him, ”that I am quite satisfied as to the truth of your story”
”Well, then,” he resu of to you, sir, was a pretty fast boat for a paddle-steamer, and had already made some tidy captures of slave-dhows--that is, since she had been coland, about sixthat formerly did duty on the station as tender to the old _London_; so I fully expected when I jined her to have some smart work afore me--and I warn't disapinted neither!”
”No?” said I questioningly to lead hiht, sir, I warn't,” replied my friend Ben ”The very first day I shi+pped aboard the _Dolphin_ we took two Mtpe dhows close inshore near Peht me in a niceish bit of prize-money for a start; and, just a week arter that exactly, e had got down to our proper cruising ground--that was, sir, just atween Zanzibar and the Mozambique Channel, which, as I daresay you know, sir, is about two hundred and fifty ascar and the est haul that had been made on the coast for years; but we had to work for it, I tell you
That was a chase and nonow to an actual yarn concerning so events of his life; for he had previously only been ”beating about the bush,” so to speak
”Yes, sir; and not only a chase that was soht as well at the end of it--one of the ses I ever had all the ti a pipe, for I allers, sir, can tell a yarn better when I'ive you a full account of the whole adventure”
”Do,” I said
”There!” exclai a briar-root pipe with some dark tobacco, which he produced from out of a little round brass box that he carried in his waistcoat pocket, telling ht it--”noe can go on serenely”
”Fire away!” said I, to encourage him, ”I'm all attention”
He did not waste any an his story
”The _Dolphin_ had run down south with the fag-end of the north-easther coals as much as possible, as all the men-of- war have to do nowadays, worse luck--so a few pounds or sacrificing a shi+p! We had passed Mazeado, which is sorees south of the equator, when--it was close on sunset at the tirows dark all at once after that, you know, in the tropics--the look-outout, 'sail-ho!' This was just as ere piped down to tea Bless you, we didn't think nobelow, I can tell you!”
”I suppose not,” I put in, to shoas listening attentively to what he was saying, for he paused at this juncture, as if waiting for h ere running down under easy sail the engine-fires were ready banked up, so that it didn't take us long to get up stea our way, right in the face of the wind, after a large dhohich we could see stealing up along-shore and hugging the land She hat the Arabs called a batilla, and had two large lugs, or lateen sails set, besides a sort of square-cut jib forwards on her high-peaked bowsprit, by the aid of which she was sailing close-hauled, al pretty stiffly at the ti it risky work for a vessel to approach so near a lee-shore as she was doing
However, I suppose her captain thought he would be able to slip by us in the darkness, when he ot under the shelter of the island we had passed only a short while previously in our doard passage to the Mozaht of the _Dolphin_, of course he could have put out to sea again at his leisure,his way north as soon as the coast seeether”
”But he reckoned without his host that time, eh?” said I