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"My word, it was a tough job lying there in the covering boat. I never thought doing nothing could be such hard work. We stopped about fifty fathoms off, and watched the other boat go in. It was so dark under the mangroves we couldn't see a thing of it. D'ye know that little, monkey- looking nigger, Sheldon, on the Flibberty the cook, I mean?
Welshmere nodded in reply to Sheldon's look of inquiry, and Viaburi was dispatched for the whisky and siphons. "It is evident, Captain Oleson," Sheldon remarked to that refreshed mariner, "that Miss Lackland has run away with your boat. Now please give a plain statement of what occurred." "Right O; here goes. I'd just come in on the Flibberty.
Only that Adamu gives me a shove down on the bottom- boards, puts one foot on me to hold me down, and goes on steering. And that's all. The shock of the whole thing brought on fever. And now I've come to find out whether I'm skipper of the Flibberty, or that chit of yours with her pirating, heathen boat's-crew." "Never mind, skipper. You can take a vacation on pay."
"This is the way she worked it. When the Martha was floated, we had to beach her right away at the head of the bay, and whilst repairs were going on, a new rudder being made, sails bent, gear recovered from the niggers, and so forth, Miss Lackland borrows Sparrowhawk to run the Flibberty along with Curtis, lends me Brahms to take Sparrowhawk's place, and starts both craft off recruiting.
'There's fifteen fathom, says she; 'you may as well turn your men to and heave up. "And then we had it out. I didn't believe her. I didn't think you'd take her on as a partner, and I told her as much and wanted proof. She got high and mighty, and I told her I was old enough to be her grandfather and that I wouldn't take gammon from a chit like her. And then I ordered her off the Flibberty.
Here you, Tangari, you speak 'm along that fella Ogu. He finish he walk about Not-Not. Have you got that, Mr. Munster?" "But you've broken the recruiting laws," Sheldon said, when the new recruits had marched away to the barracks. "The licenses for the Flibberty and the Emily don't allow for one hundred and fifty. What did Burnett say?" "He passed them, all of them," she answered.
She's sworn three men off their drink, or, to the same purpose, shut off their whisky. You know them Brahms, Curtis, and Fowler. She shipped them on the Flibberty-Gibbet along with her." "She's the skipper of the Flibberty now," Oleson broke in. "And she'll wreck her as sure as God didn't make the Solomons." Dr. Welshmere tried to look shocked, but laughed again.
Two hours later, one of the house-boys, breathless and scratched ran him down with the news that the Martha, the Flibberty- Gibbet, and the Emily were heading in for the anchorage. Coming into the compound from the rear, Sheldon could see nothing until he rode around the corner of the bungalow.
Sparrowhawk is a good man to take orders. He has no initiative. He's an able sailor, but he can't command. I tell you I was nervous all the time he had charge of the Flibberty at Poonga-Poonga when I had to stay by the Martha." And so it had gone. No name proposed was satisfactory, and, moreover, Sheldon had been surprised by the accuracy of her judgments.
The matter of finding a skipper had been a hard one. She was jealous of the Martha, and no suggested man had satisfied her. "Oleson?" she had demanded. "He does very well on the Flibberty, with me and my men to overhaul her whenever she's ready to fall to pieces through his slackness. But skipper of the Martha? Impossible!" "Munster?
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