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At the period of the arrival of the Jane, an ex-corporal of the English artillery, named Glass, reigned over a little colony of twenty-six individuals, who traded with the Cape, and whose only vessel was a small schooner. At our arrival this Glass had more than fifty subjects, and was, as Arthur Pym remarked, quite independent of the British Government.
"Cape smoke?" said I, inquiringly, to Mr Stormcock, who happened to come up the hatchway on to the main deck as the doctor was thus cross-examining the ex-corporal of marines outside the sick bay, where poor Macan was now doing "sentry-go" after his reduction to the ranks, to make his humiliation the more complete. "What is that? It can't be real smoke, I suppose!" The master's mate laughed.
On the 8th of September, in the evening, I had taken leave of His Excellency the Governor-General of the Archipelago of Tristan d’Acunha for such is the official title bestowed upon himself by that excellent fellow, Glass, ex-corporal of artillery in the British Army. On the following day, before dawn, the Halbrane sailed.
Was he not conscious that her eldest boy must be now fourteen, named for him, Martin Pike, and a young American all through? It must be confessed that as the ex-corporal stood there at his night post under the stars he half regretted that he had embarked on this risky enterprise.
"And," added ex-Corporal Grimes, stamping the sidewalk with his peg leg, "what's more, there wasn't ary one of them Johnny Rebs that couldn't pick off a squirrel five hundred yards away with a rifle a RIFLE, mind ye, not a battery of machine guns.
Presently the ex-corporal saw the Mexican saunter up to the wagons and Pike took several strides through the timber watching before he said a word; yet, with the instinct of the old soldier, he brought his carbine to full cock. Somehow or other he "could not tolerate that greaser."
"It is a sorry entertainment, I confess," said the ex-corporal, "and a dismal way for a gentleman to spend his bridal night; but somebody must stay with you, my dears: for who knows but you might take a fancy to scream out of window, and then there would be murder, and the deuce and all to pay.
He bent his lithe body double, even though he knew that at this moment the captain and the ex-corporal were over at the east end of their little camp-ground, chatting together in low tones. He laughed to himself as he reached his mules and found them heavily hoppled with iron chains.
"Well, sir," said the ex-corporal of dragoons, with a touch of hesitation, "it isn't for me to judge, but I should say he's he's got religion. Or a taste of it, anyway." O'Neill stared at the pair of them in open dismay. "Let me see him," he said shortly, and they followed him through the little anteroom to the great studio.
“That came from me,” interrupted the ex-corporal. “And those other islands, may I learn whether the Jane discovered them?” “No, nor the Auroras either, although William Guy remained several weeks in those waters, running from east to west, with a look-out always at the masthead.” “He must have lost his bearings, Mr.
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