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Updated: May 29, 2025
With that he waved his hand, and her white ensign, whose blood-red cross of Saint George stood out in bold relief, dipped in parting salute to our vessel, which reciprocated the compliment as the man-of-war bore away on her course to the northward, a group of officers rollicking round their captain on her deck aft and gazing at us as she moved off rapidly under a full pressure of steam, evidently admiring our skipper's wonderful sea anchor.
Wyllard did not answer. He was gazing up at the bridge, and once more the whistle hurled out a great warning blast. It hardly seemed to her that the two vessels could pass clear of each other. Then Wyllard laid a hand upon her shoulder. "The skipper's starboarding. We'll go round her stern," he said.
The brig then gave a sudden yaw, and with that motion there was wafted a stink a stink too damnably foul and rotten to originate from anywhere, save from some cesspool in hell. Choking, retching, and all but fainting, I buried my face in the skipper's coat, and did not venture to raise it, till the far-away sounds of plunging and tossing assured me the cursed ship had passed.
The skipper's rage was great, but he could only swear, and O'Sullivan Og, the man in the frieze coat, who bore him an old grudge, grinned in mockery. "For better custody, Captain!" he said. "For better custody! Under my roof, bien! And when you will to go again there will be the dues to be paid, the little dues over which we quarrelled last time! And all will be rendered to a stave!"
The skipper's arrival was eagerly looked for at certain stated times, the preconcerted signal was given by him, and the inhabitants bestirred themselves with commendable haste.
The magistrate began by fining him ten thousand piastres for making a noise; then he listened patiently, promised to examine into his affair at the skipper's return, and ordered him to pay ten thousand piastres for the expense of the hearing.
"The watchman's nearly sure to be asleep," said Fraser, "and you can easily climb the gate. If he's not, I must try and get him out of the way somehow." The skipper's forebodings proved to be correct. It was past twelve by the time they reached Wapping, but the watchman was wide awake and, with much bustle, helped them to berth their craft.
Lads, my spirits and emotions are in a fair Chinese tornado every which way at once. In the first place, I'm seventy-five dollars poorer than I was last night; in the second, poor old Skipper's been given some kind av poison that's made him so sick I doubt he'll get over it." "You've been robbed?" gasped Merritt. "That's it, my lad. That's the word.
But Charlie required no help. A loose rope hanging over the side caught his eye: he seized it and was on deck again in a few seconds. A minute later and he was down in the cabin. There, terror-stricken, sat the skipper's wife, never venturing to move, because she had been told to remain there till called. Happily she knew nothing of the incident just described.
Williams who, it need scarcely be said, was one of the hardened ones upon whom the skipper's words produced no impression saw plainly what was passing in the minds of the others, and hastened to annul the effect produced. "That was a very clever speech of the old man's very clever," he remarked sardonically. "There was only one fault about it, and that was that he didn't speak the truth.
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