“Yes, lad, and I found you, when I went down to my cabin, in each other’s arms, and both fast asleep.”
I myself, dear reader, must now resume the thread of my narrative, from the place where Captain Roberts gives it up.
When the crew of the Niobe returned to their native land from the Cape, and the new crew joined, I remained with my foster-father—my dear old sea-dad.
From the Cape we sailed straight to Bombay, it being found that the old Niobe would require to go into dry dock.
I remember being dazzled with all I saw in Bombay, except those terrible Towers of Silence, on which the dead bodies of the Parsees are exposed to be devoured by birds. What I think struck me most was the gorgeous dresses of the natives, and the enormous amount of gold and silver ornaments they wore about them; bangles, and bracelets, and jewelled noselets, and ear-rings as big as cymbals, or the brass plates that barbers hang out in front of their doors. If I wondered at the natives, the natives wondered at me—the piccaninny sailor-boy, as they called me—for I was now dressed out quite like a man-o’-war’s man.
From Bombay we returned to our cruising ground, which was at that time called the Cape station, and stretched all along the entire east coast of Africa, from the Cape to the Red Sea, including not only Madagascar with its circlet of tiny islets, but Mozambique, the Comoro Islands, and Seychelles as well. Were I to tell you all my adventures on these shores, I should have no space to devote to sketches probably quite as interesting.
Let me come then as speedily as I may to the one great event of my life: my capture by that arch-fiend Zareppa, and my treatment while a prisoner for ten long years in the wildest part of the interior of Africa.
As soon as we reached Zanzibar, I being then of the ripe age of six years, the captain called me aft, and Roberts the boatswain came along with me.