Leaves from a middy's log

“ In an agony of apprehension I knelt down at Charlie’s side. ”
T. NELSON & SONS.
Leaves from a
Middy’s Log
BY ARTHUR LEE KNIGHT Author of “Adventures of a Midshipmite,” “The Rajah of Monkey Island,” “The Cruise of the ‘Cormorant’.” &c. &c.
THOMAS NELSON AND SONS London, Edinburgh, and New York
1896
LEAVES FROM A MIDDY’S LOG.
At the time when the adventures which I am about to relate took place, I, Jack Darcy, was serving as a midshipman on board H.M.S. Rattler , a smart frigate of fifty guns, commanded by Captain Graves, who was a very distinguished officer and much beloved by all who served under him. Our vessel was attached to the North American squadron, and consequently we often visited the West Indies and cruised in the Caribbean Sea. On this particular occasion we were lying at anchor in the commodious harbour of Havana, the capital of the beautiful and fertile island of Cuba, which its Spanish masters delight to call “the pearl of the Antilles.”
A few days after we had come to anchor in the harbour, I, in company with some of my brother-middies, obtained leave to go ashore and have a look at the city and its Spanish and Creole inhabitants. As the reader may suppose, we found plenty to interest and amuse us. The afternoon, however, turned out so hot that we made up our minds to return on board the ship earlier than we had intended; and with this in view, we sauntered down to the wharf under a burning tropical sun to seek for a shore-boat. In a few minutes, the placid waters of the harbour, glowing like molten gold under the fierce rays of an almost vertical sun, opened out before us, crowded with shipping of various nationalities, amid which our own beautiful, shapely frigate was clearly discernible with her lofty tapering spars and shining black hull, the latter relieved by the broad white streak across the portholes, from which the open-mouthed guns frowned menacingly.
“I say, Jack,” exclaimed one of my messmates, Charlie Balfour, as we were steering our way through the piles of merchandise that lay strewn on the wharves, “that looks uncommonly like the officers’ recall flying at the Rattler’s masthead. What can the meaning of it be?”