Then there was a hearty handshake and both sat down.
"There is the wine," said the commander, "and there is the whisky."
"I'll have the whisky," said Grant, "though not much. But it is the wine of my country, sir."
The commander smiled, and Grant drew the cruet towards him, quoting as he did so and while he tapped the bottle, the words of Burns:
"When neebors anger at a plea,
And just as wud[[2]] as wud can be,
How easy can the barley-bree
Cement the quarrel!
It's aye the cheapest lawyer's fee
To taste the barrel."
[[2]] Wud=angry.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Some time after this the commander fell ill, and so kind was Grant to him, and so constant in his attentions, that all animosity fled for ever, and Flint really got fond of Grant, whom he delighted when visiting on shore to call "my surgeon".
Well, whatever ill-feeling officers or men may exhibit toward each other if penned up in a small mess, when war comes it is all forgotten, and the British sailors and marines, when sent on shore to fight, stand shoulder to shoulder, and woe be to the foe who faces them.
One day, while lying off Loanda, startling intelligence came to the commander of the Rattler from a steam launch that had been despatched in all haste to hurry her up to the mouth of the Benin river. A party of European traders, many British as well as foreign, had been surrounded and massacred to a man. The steam launch belonged to H.M.S. Centiped, a cruiser far larger than the Rattler. The officer in charge could hardly stop to eat or drink, but food was handed over the side, and in ten minutes' time she was once more under weigh and steering rapidly north.