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The boiling white breakers were dashing right against her bows, lifting them up with every send, and thundering them down again against the flint hard coral spikes, with a loud gritting rumble; while every now and then the sea made a fair breach over them, flashing up over the whole deck aft to the tafferel in a snow storm of frothy flakes.
D'ye hear, boy? I certainly did hear, but I'm afraid I did not understand, for my mind was so taken up with the game, which I saw my side was losing, that I began to grow impatient, and the moment my uncle finished his description of the ship, and bade me good-bye, I bolted back to my game, with only a confused idea of three masts, and a green painted tafferel, and a gilt figure-head of Hercules with his club at the bow.
The President of a republic never runs away in his own person. There will be a cup of tea in the officers' mess-room at five o'clock. I will leave you till then, as you may wish to employ yourself." I went up immediately afterwards on deck, and looking back over the tafferel, could only just see the glittering spires of Gladstonopolis in the distance. Now was the time for thought.
I dressed, and the boat was lowered down, and we pulled for the corvette, but our course lay under the stern of the two English ships that were lying there loading cargoes of coffee. "Pray, sir," said a decent looking man, who leant on the tafferel of one of them "Pray, sir, are you going on board of the Commodore?" "I am," I answered.
Yet we should oftener look over the tafferel of our craft, like curious passengers, and not make the voyage like stupid sailors picking oakum. The other side of the globe is but the home of our correspondent. Our voyaging is only great-circle sailing, and the doctors prescribe for diseases of the skin merely.
It might now have been about three o'clock, and I was standing on the aftermost gun on the starboard side, peering into the impervious darkness over the tafferel, with my dear old dog Sneezer by my side, nuzzling and fondling after his affectionate fashion, while the pilot, Peter Mangrove, stood within handspike length of me.
D'ye hear, boy? I certainly did hear, but I'm afraid I did not understand, for my mind was so taken up with the game, which I saw my side was losing, that I began to grow impatient, and the moment my uncle finished his description of the ship and bade me good-bye, I bolted back to my game, with only a confused idea of three masts, and a green painted tafferel, and a gilt figure-head of Hercules with his club at the bow.
At last I caught sight of what I made sure was it, a fine large vessel just casting off her moorings. The tafferel was green. Three masts, yes, that must be it, and the gilt figure-head of Hercules. To be sure it had a three-pronged pitchfork in its hand instead of a club; but that might be my uncle's mistake; or perhaps Hercules sometimes varied his weapons.
Obed promptly caught his sword arm "Francisco," he exclaimed, still in Spanish, "fool, madman, let go your hold! let go, or by the Heaven above us, and the hell we are both hastening to, I will strike you dead!" The man paused, and looked round to his own people, and seeing one or two encouraging glances and gestures amongst them, he again attempted to drag me away from my hold on the tafferel.
It was my common practice to sit for hours after night-fall upon the tafferel, and strain my eyes in the attempt to distinguish objects on shore or strange sails in the distance. It happened that, on the 30th, I was tempted to indulge in this idle but bewitching employment, even beyond my usual hour for retiring, and did not quit the deck till towards two o'clock in the morning of the 31st.
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