"I call him in one minute, sah."
What a mountain of a fellow this steward was! As black was he as the inside of an empty ink-jar when the cork is in. All black except two rows of white teeth and the conjunctiva of his eyes. These last, however, had a tinge of yellow in them. Quambo was really a giant, only a very good-natured one. But once or twice in a fight on shore the man had shown the kind of metal he was made of. He was very fond of Fred. One day the latter had interfered in Zanzibar to protect a poor little slave lass, that a fierce-looking Arab had been brutally using. The consequence was that the lad was mobbed. But from the window of the hotel Quambo had seen it all. Downstairs he rushed, and before he left the house with one terrible wrench he tore an iron bar from the window, then sallied forth. Fred was lying helpless and bleeding, and the Arabs and half-castes around him must have numbered fifty at least.
"Clear the way!" cried Quambo. "Sameela! Sameela!" (Make room! make room!)
Then the fiends turned fiercely on the negro. But Quambo's eyes were flashing fire, and his nostrils distended like those of a war-horse that scents the battle from afar. He mowed that ruffianly mob down right and left, drawn swords were shivered in pieces, and the thick turbans of the Arabs were no protection against the terrible weapon that Quambo wielded. He speedily rescued Fred, and bore him away in triumph. Fred and his friend the negro left the hotel half an hour after, but no one wanted to renew the combat.
Now Cassia-bud was also a negro, a poor, wee innocent mite of a fellow, and the ship's pet. Small enough was Cassia-bud to ride on the captain's great honest black Newfoundland dog, and small enough too for the men to make a ball of and play a kind of game with of a summer's evening.
"Kashie! Kashie!" shouted Quambo, and next minute Kashie appeared.
"Here, boy, pull my boots off!" The captain had flung himself into his easy chair and stuck out his legs.
What a good-natured, aye, and good-looking, man was this same skipper, as he liked to call himself! For well-nigh fifty years he had kicked about all over the world; but, barring his grey hairs and snow-white whiskers, you scarce could have told he was a day past forty. He was a thorough sailor every inch.
But is that our little Fred that used to be? That tall, handsome young fellow of seventeen, with dark blue eyes, a wealth of brown curly hair, and a budding black moustache. Verily, it is none other. Look at his rosy face and pearly teeth. Behold what the sea and a virtuous life has done for the young Scottish sailor!
Down he sat beside his captain, and the rapid disappearance of those sardines and onions, with the crisp toasted and buttered biscuit, would have made a cockney stare in wonder.