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The light was now fading rapidly, and Wyllard took the wheel when Dampier sent forward the man who had held it. "Get the cover off the second boat, and see everything clear for hoisting out," commanded the skipper, and then called to Wyllard, "We're close enough. You'd better heave her round."
Mindanao, Manilla, certain parts of the Chinese coasts, the Moluccas, New Holland, and the Nicobar Islands, were the places visited and plundered by Dampier in this campaign. In the last-named archipelago he became separated from his companions, and was discovered half dead upon the coast of Sumatra.
Well, I don't know what Dampier saw, but I guess he'd have made out that we hadn't hauled the boat up, anyway. The trouble is that with the wind freshening and it getting thick he'd have to thrash the schooner out and lie to until it cleared. When he runs in again it's quite likely that he'll find the boat and an oar or two. Seems to me that's going to worry him considerable."
They could scarcely hear each other, though the schooner was lurching over it more easily now with shortened canvas, and Wyllard made Dampier understand that he wished to speak to him only by thrusting him towards the deck-house door. They went in together, and stood clutching at the table with the lamplight on their tense, wet faces and the brine that ran from them making pools upon the deck.
The logwood began to come aboard a day or two later; and Dampier sometimes went ashore with the boat for it, on which occasions he visited the huts of the woodmen, and ate some merry meals with them, "with Pork and Pease, or Beef and Dough-boys," not to mention "Drams or Punch." On the voyage home he was chased by Spaniards, who "fired a Gun" at the ketch, but could not fetch her alongside.
Dampier?" he exclaimed, "he is a British subject, and, as far as I know, a perfectly respectable man." The Prefect smiled. "The mere fact that he is an English subject living in Paris entitles him to a dossier. In fact everybody who is anybody in any kind of society, from that frequented by the Apaches to that of the Faubourg Saint Germain, has a dossier.
Dampier, in his Travels, tells us, that when Seamen are thrown upon any of the unknown Coasts of America, they never venture upon the Fruit of any Tree, how tempting soever it may appear, unless they observe that it is marked with the Pecking of Birds; but fall on without any Fear or Apprehension where the Birds have been before them.
And as his daughter showed no sign of having understood, he said again, with a touch of severity in his voice: "Daisy, I desire you to go upstairs." "You'll bring Mrs. Dampier up again, father?" He hesitated and then he said, "Yes, should she wish it, I will do so." And Daisy Burton turned away, up the stairs again, very reluctantly.
The remainder of the crew, after committing various piracies, had entered into the service of one of the princes of Madagascar, in a harbour of which island their ship had sunk. After making other trips, Dampier went to Fort Saint George, and from thence proceeded to Bencoulin, an English factory on the west coast, where he acted as gunner for five months.
This was her war complement; but Dampier himself tells us that he "sailed from the Downs early on Saturday, January 14th, 1699, with a fair wind, in His Majesty's ship the Roebuck, carrying but 12 guns on this voyage and 50 men with 20 months' provisions."
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