“You needed it, I should think,” I said, laughing.
“None o’ your sauce,” said the old captain. “We rested, and smoked our pipes, and looked on the sea. Oh! to see the moonlight dancing on the rippling waves!”
“I can easily imagine it, because I’ve often seen the like myself,” I replied.
“It was late that night when we got to Chaksee. The ship was in behind the rocks so snug that we thought at first she wasn’t there.
“All on board were glad to see us, including Nie himself.”
“How old would I be then, Roberts?”
“About five. The Niobe, it seems, was ordered down to the Cape to refit; all her crew were to return to England, but, as you know, I preferred to stop in the old ship with the new crew. I’m like the cats, I don’t like to move.
“The captain and I had a long talk. He treated me just as if I’d been a commissioned officer. He told me he had found a whole nest of pirates, that he had given one fits a day or two before, and meant to pepper the others soon if he had a chance. They were over there, he said, pointing to the African coast, and he would have them.
“The commander of the Niobe, indeed, was in high glee. He had been ordered home, he said, but he would wait for those piratical scoundrels and old Zareppa if it were a month. Then, surely, if he destroyed him and his ships his country would, in some way or other, requite his good services, and either promote him or give him a better command.
“We lay snug behind the rocks at Chaksee for two whole days. Our top-gallant masts were down, and no one in passing the island could have told there was a vessel there at all.