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Updated: May 29, 2025
"Why, it's worse for me," I cried. "I'm quite strong and well. I ought to have gone." Barkins exploded with silent laughter, laid his hand on Smith's shoulder, and said huskily, as if he were choking with mirth "I say, hark at him! What for? There'll be plenty of mosquitoes up there to sting the poor fellows; they don't want a gnat to tickle them and make them fight." "No," said Smith.
"Yes, sir, I hear," I said, and I left him going to join the captain, while I went down and told Barkins what had been going on, but I had not been talking to him five minutes before I heard a heavy splash as if something had been thrown over the side. "What's that?" said Barkins, turning pale. I did not answer. "Sounds like burying some one," he whispered.
"But it was about the pirates, sir." "Eh? What?" cried our superior officer, suddenly changing his tone. "Has he some idea?" "Yes, sir. No, sir." "Mr Barkins! What do you mean, sir?" "He thinks we shall never catch them, sir," stammered my messmate, who could see punishment writ large in the lieutenant's face. "Confound the Chinaman, sir!" roared the lieutenant.
"Good-bye, old chap," whispered Barkins in a piteous tone, his voice coming in sobs of exhaustion. "Give point when they come on: don't strike. Try and kill one of the cowardly beggars before they finish us." "Yes," I gasped. "Chuck that spyglass down," cried Smith; "it's in your way."
I made a deprecatory gesture. "I should have remembered directly that Captain Thwaites was ashore." "Beg pardon, sir," said Barkins, touching his cap. "Well, Mr Barkins." "I hope you will not send any marines with us." "And pray why, sir?" "We should have to be looking after them, sir, as much as they would be looking after us."
I was growing faint with the heat down in that narrow, breathless street, my clothes stuck to me, and Barkins' heavy telescope banged heavily against my side, making me feel ready to unfasten the strap and let it fall. But I kept on for another fifty yards or so with our enemies yelling in the rear, and the waterside seeming to grow no nearer. "Keep together, lads," cried Barkins excitedly.
"Yes, sir," I said, smiling; "I'd have some shirts and trousers hung up in the rigging to dry, just as if the men had been having a wash." "To be sure," he cried. "What else?" "It wouldn't be bad if we could catch a few big fish, and let them be hanging over the stern rail as if to keep them fresh." "I'll set Mr Barkins and Mr Smith to try and catch some," he said eagerly.
But it was not a time for mirth: we were all too sad, and Barkins contented himself with whispering "I say, I'm jolly glad it wasn't I who said that. Don't the skipper take it coolly now? But he'll give old Dishy a talking-to for it when he gets him alone."
"I say, Barkins, I didn't think you could have been such a jerry sneak." He turned upon me with an apologetic look, but his lips began to bluster. "What do you mean, sir?" "Oh, nothing; I am not going to quarrel with old Barkins. He wouldn't have done this, if it had not been for Blacksmith." "Go and obey the first lieutenant's orders, sir," said Smith haughtily. "We will talk to you later on."
As she glided away from us, with her crew collected astern, to climb up and watch us, grinning and making derisive gestures, Barkins suddenly swung round the telescope, slipped the strap over his head, adjusted it to the proper focus, as marked by a line scratched with the point of a penknife, and raised it to his eye, when, to my astonishment, I saw all the Chinamen drop down out of sight.
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