Yes, all the fighting had been about me.
Our fellows had not lost the battle that day at Zareppa’s fort; on the contrary, they had given the Arabs a grievous defeat. I had at first been reported killed, but as I was not found among the dead and wounded, search was made for me more inland, and it was soon elicited that I had been carried away prisoner, and no doubts were left in the minds of my shipmates, that I had died by the torture, in order to avenge the death of the pirate chief.
The old Niobe had been wrecked since my incarceration in the land of the savages. Roberts had been made lieutenant, and it was not until he returned to the shores of Africa, several years after, that he heard from friendly Arabs that there was an English prisoner in the hands of a warlike tribe of savages, who lived almost in the centre of the dark continent. After this my dear friend never rested in his hammock, as he himself expressed it, until he had organised the expedition that came to my relief.
What a delightful sensation it was to me to feel myself once more at sea!
“The glorious mirror, where the Almighty’s form
Glasses itself in tempest.”
We were homeward bound. I was a passenger, and we had splendid weather, so everything seemed to combine to make me feel joyful and happy. Joyful, did I say? why, there were times when I wanted to run about and shout for joy like a schoolboy, or like the savage that I fear I had almost become.
But I could not run about and shout on board a trim and well-disciplined man-o’-war. The very appearance of the
“White and glassy deck, without a stain
Where, on the watch, the staid lieutenant walked,”
forbade, so at such moments I used to long to be away in the woods again, in order to give proper vent to my exultation.