Mr. Every was down at the boats.
“Hallo, old May,” he said. “We thought you must be dead by now; that the sickness had taken you. You must have been born to be hanged!”
IX
Getting out to sea strengthened me a little more, and I took heart, though the evil associations of the Charles the Second pained the conscience. Very small scrapings had fallen to them since they had left Joanna, and the mood of the crew was sour.
However, they parliamented together and voted to go to the Gulf of Aden to find Moorish ships, and perhaps waylay the rich fleet of Mocha, whose movements they had learned of at Madagascar.
“With that,” said Mr. Every, “we shall make our fortune”,—fortune being a great word in his mouth.
In those regions the sun is cruel. As we drew on to the gulf the heat lay upon us like a smothering blanket; nay, like many blankets, so that the very air one breathed seemed to sear the throat; we went about our blistered decks nearly naked—to put your hand on one of the guns was like laying it on a hot oven—and Mr. Every sprawled under an awning that was rigged over the poop, drinking bomboo[10] and wishing he had made his fortune and were living in a fine house with a fine wife in England. Nor had we the comfort of looking toward cooler waters, but every day drew farther and farther into the furnace.
[10] Grog of limes, sugar, etc.
At the mouth of the Red Sea—red is the color of flame—we fell in with two ships that were on the same account as we, and the morning after meeting them met three more ships of bad intent, some being Englishmen from America—Captains May (no relative of mine) Farrel and Wake—until you might have supposed a parliament of pirates was meeting. We were all there for the Mocha fleet; but after riding together a night or two and exchanging visits we separated, each captain having his own notion of the place where the fleet we sought would pass.
But wide is the sea and many are its paths, and the Mocha fleet slipped by us all in the night of Saturday. Next morning the men held a general consult as to whether we should follow them or not, and after a great dispute as usual, a vote was taken which fell for pursuit, and so the Sabbath was desecrated by a wicked chase.