The Sally Port.
"My tobacco—and it's a rare Brazilian article—is lying in the bottom of my boat!" shouted the Cook, as he followed the Vice.
"The Vice and the Cook will tow up the other boats," ordered the Commodore, "while the Purser and I construct temporary shelter."
Several hundred yards from the fort was a group of trees and a board pile, and to this the commanding officer and the Purser hastened. The trees seemed to have been a favorite resort of cattle, and the contents of the board pile were rotten, but it was not a time to be particular, so a beam was stretched between the limbs of two trees, and boards slanted against it to shed the rain. Fortunately a platform of boards happened to be just where the extempore shed would cover it. When the Vice and the Cook returned, the latter considerately bringing dinner material with him, it was discovered to be noon-day, so the party did justice to bread and butter, cold tongue, and a can of apricots. Suddenly the Vice remarked,
"I suppose these boards beneath our feet are the floor of some late military structure. I can't help noticing how perfectly they are combined for drainage, sagging, as they do, at the centre."
The Commodore had not before noticed the peculiarity alluded to, but now his mathematical eye saw that the depression in the boards was lower than the surface of the surrounding ground. Extracting a trolling line from the Vice's pocket, he lowered a sinker cautiously in a crack between two boards, unrolled considerable line, withdrew it, and remarked,
"I have the pleasure of informing the squadron that during military occupation of the fort, the inmates of the hospital, the ruins of which we behold in front of us, had an abundant supply of cool water from a very deep well, which well is at the present moment directly under us, while the boards which cover it are slowly breaking."
Every one sprang to his feet. While at his home occupation of statesmanship, the Vice never beheld disaster impending over his own party without speedily traversing the whole distance between his own party and the opposition, so on this particular occasion, his instincts impelled him to dash through rain, mud, and thistles toward the ruins of the hospital, whose wall offered the most distinct shelter within view. The Vice wore a helmet, his long whiskers fluttered behind him on the breeze, his shoulders and body were covered by a black rubber blanket, his trowsers were rolled high above his stockingless calves, and he wore a huge pair of carpet slippers, which were nearly as wide as they were long. His figure and attitudes, as he ran, were so full of suggestion that the artist preserved them in a series of sketches, severally entitled.