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The globe-trotting, millionaires anxious to spend money, with a hose on whatever caught their libertine fancies, had explained to us aboard-ship that they came to Japan in haste, advised by their guide-books to do so, lest the land should be suddenly civilised between steamer-sailing and steamer-sailing.
The next most remarkable event of this time was the seizure, by Henry, of the heir to the Scottish throne James, a boy of nine years old. He had been put aboard-ship by his father, the Scottish King Robert, to save him from the designs of his uncle, when, on his way to France, he was accidentally taken by some English cruisers.
One name is there, however, chipped in a great black slab from the face of Split Mountain, that will never be forgotten as long as Trigger Island exists: it is that of Captain Weatherby Trigger. The master of the Doraine died aboard-ship in the second winter. After his death the ship was abandoned. Mr. Codge and the half-dozen old mariners who had made their home in the dismal hulk came ashore.
And the coxswain, Israel Hands, was a careful, wily, old, experienced seaman, who could be trusted at a pinch with almost anything. He was a great confidant of Long John Silver, and so the mention of his name leads me on to speak of our ship's cook, Barbecue, as the men called him. Aboard-ship he carried his crutch by a lanyard round his neck, to have both hands as free as possible.
Oh, poor girl, this wasn't what she'd expected! As plainly as if I were aboard-ship I felt the scene, the hurrying feet, the slippery deck, the hoarse cries, the creaking cordage, the heaving and plunging and straining, and the wide wild night.
The men aboard-ship, he told me, seemed at first just as strange to him as the Beast Men seemed to me, unnaturally long in the leg, flat in the face, prominent in the forehead, suspicious, dangerous, and cold-hearted. In fact, he did not like men: his heart had warmed to me, he thought, because he had saved my life.
And then they were spared the need of another look, for there suddenly loomed up less than a hundred yards ahead a dull-glowing white light. "To the forward gun, Mr. Templeton," ordered Lord Hastings, thus, for the first time on this mission, falling into old aboard-ship terms. Jack sprang forward. "Man the gun astern." Frank obeyed this command with alacrity.
"All hands on deck," cried Mr Brooke, making use of the familiar aboard-ship order, and just as the first two boats were coming rapidly on, and were within a dozen yards, our Jacks sprang up armed and ready. The effect was magical. Evidently taken by surprise, the Chinamen stopped short, and the boats all went on drifting slowly down the stream.
And I got as servant to an invalid lady, who grew quite fond of my baby aboard-ship; and, in two years' time, Sam earned his discharge, and came home to me, and to our child.
He lived with us during the whole term of his stay, which, I think, was something less than a month, and his sister and my aunt came to London to see him. Agnes and I parted from him aboard-ship, when he sailed; and we shall never part from him more, on earth. But before he left, he went with me to Yarmouth, to see a little tablet I had put up in the churchyard to the memory of Ham.
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