“Course you ain’t, sir. There, I didn’t mean nothing disrespectful. It was only my fun. This here ’bacca as you give me, sir, baint the best I ever had. Lor! how hot them poor fellows do look, buttoned and belted up as they is,” he continued, as the soldiers fell into line. “It’s a deal better to be a sailor, Master Bob.”
“Ever so much, Dick,” said the middy. “How long is it since you were out here, Dick?”
“How long, sir?” and the sailor thoughtfully, as he sprinkled the sea with a little tobacco juice; “six year.”
“And have you been more than once, Dick?”
“Four times altogether, sir. Let’s see: I was at Singapore, and at Penang, and Malacky, and up the country at a place they called Bang, or Clang, or something or another.”
“And what sort of a country is it, Dick?” said the boy eagerly.
“Wonderful country; all palm-trees and jungles, and full of rivers and creeks, where the long row-boats, as they call prahus, runs up.”
“Those are the pirates’ boats, Dick?”
“That’s right, sir; and precious awkward things they are to catch, Lord love you! I’ve been after ’em in cutter and pinnace, firing our bow gun among them, and the men pulling like mad to get up alongside; but they generally dodged in and out of some of these mangrove creeks till they give us the slip, and we had to pull back.”
“Shouldn’t I like to be in chase of one of the scoundrelly prahus!” cried the lad, with his eyes flashing.