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The light was increasing, it was that of the rising moon. They found that they had arrived in front of some palisades. They formed the wall to the negro city. Wasser signified that they must get over it to see their friend, and conducted them to the left, along the outside of the palisade.
At length it became advisable to communicate with King Bom-Bom, whose prisoner Jack had been, and as both he and Terence knew the river, they were ordered to proceed up it, to deliver the message, and to return as soon as possible. I ought to have said that Wasser had attached himself to his old friend Hemming, and had entered regularly as a seaman on board the frigate.
The day at length passed away, and after the party had taken a supper, as soon as Wasser thought it was safe, they issued forth from their leafy bower, and with rapid strokes pulled up the stream towards the fort which had been the scene of contest. Wasser remarked that none of the blacks would be venturing there at night, and that it would be the best place for the boat to remain at.
By that time Terence and Needham had climbed on board, and, coming to Murray's assistance, they leaned over the counter, and seizing Wasser by the arms, pulled him up still farther out of the water, and then White, joining them with a boat-hook, drove the point into one of the monster's eyes, when he at length opened his jaws, and retreated to a short distance, still, however, watching his writhing prey, as if ready to make another attack.
"And will you put this hot Feuer under the said hot Wasser, and in that hot Wasser put the eggs and keep them there zehn Minuten, zwanzig Minuten, or a day or a week any length of time, so that they are only boiled hard, just like stones, brickbats, rocks, boulders or the gray granite crest of Yosemite? I want mine eggs hard."
Murray, who had been there before, the instant he came on deck pronounced Wasser to be right, and in a short time the schooner was running in towards a collection of conical and wooded heights, with the strong and formidable-looking fortress of Cape Coast, built on a mass of rock, in front of them, with the sea washing round a considerable part of it.
The time passed slowly by while the Archer's boat, with Murray, Adair, and Dick Needham aboard, and the young African lad Wasser, lay hid under the bank of the river, waiting for the time when they might sally forth to the rescue of Jack Rogers. Everybody was eager for the moment, for all longed to have him safe among them.
I could hear Temple rehearsing his German vocabulary, 'Brod, butter, wasser, fleisch, bett, as we stumbled along. Then it fell to 'Brod, wasser, bett, and then, 'Bett' by itself, his confession of fatigue.
"No use, thank ye, massas," said Wasser, shaking his head. "Doctor no do good. My time come. Me die happy. Once me thought fetish take me, now me know where me go who wait for me." He pointed solemnly upwards as he spoke. The deathbed of that poor black lad might well be envied by many a proud white man. Wasser's predictions proved not unfounded.
Their boat, with Dick Needham, their new friend Wasser, and three other picked men, all well-armed, shoved off with the other boats, and soon darting in towards a sheltered nook, which they had before observed, lay as they believed perfectly concealed from all passers-by. Wasser, however, advised them to cut down boughs, and to fasten them in front of the boat.
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