One evening, about three weeks after the adventure with the stingaree, as they all lay round the fire, and Quambo and Mac were blowing great curling clouds of the wild tobacco, the smoke from which, however, was not considered Rimmellian by either Fred or Frank, said the latter:
"D'ye know, lads, that I think flying fish is about the nicest fish in the sea—to eat I mean?"
"Well," said Fred, "I think Kashie here might catch some."
"Fly fish?" said Cassia-bud. "Oh, massa, you expects po' Kashie to catch the big debbil dat fly over de reef, with nuffin but his head on. Kashie not can do."
"No, no, Kashie. It is the little flying skip-jack business I mean."
"Oh, I see, sah! de flying herrings, sah?"
"A good name too. Well, Fred, do you know that a flying fish once saved my life?"
"Ah! a story? Eh? Out with it, Frank. 'Saved by a flying fish: a tale in two chapters; or, a romance of sea life!'"
"Well, lads, you'll admit there isn't much romance about it when you hear it. Scene first then opens with me lying sick and ill in a hammock on deck, on board the old Resolute. We were at sea you know, and a long way from land. I must say the skipper was just as kind to me as he knew how to be. He used to bring his bottle of rum on deck, and sit beside me and drink it for company's sake like; for you know I wouldn't have any. He was a very straightforward chap that skipper, I hope he is still alive and afloat, though I doubt it very much. 'If ye're so grand as not to drink the rum, young man,' he said to me sometimes, 'why I guess the next best thing you can do is to lie there, and see me drink it.' Well, until I gave up eating entirely the skipper had good hopes of me; but when I lay in my hammock as weak as a baby, and couldn't pick a morsel of salt junk or dried cod, then he told me plainly there wasn't a ghost of a chance for me.
"Then we got becalmed, and there was a blue shark, about twenty feet long, kept close to the ship all the time, waiting and watching.