So paralysed were we that we entirely forgot to haul down the flag, and it was still flying when—an hour afterwards a couple of tugs managed to get us in tow, and we were once more heading back for the harbour.
The first words the officer of the tug said to me, when he had time to speak, were—
“Why, you’re a pretty lot! Cutting out a man o’ war under the very guns of the flag-ship, and running off with it. Ha! ha! ha!”
Whatever the laugh might have meant, it sounded to me like the yell of a hyena.
“If you please, sir,” I advanced, “we didn’t run away with the ship; the ship ran away with us.”
“Was it bullum versus boatum,” he said, “or boatum versus bullum?”
“I don’t talk Turkish,” I said.
“Well,” he said, “Turkish here or Turkish there, you young pirate, I suppose you know what you’ll catch?”
“Hang us, won’t they?”
“Hang you? Yes. Drum-head court-martial, and hanging, and serve you right too. You don’t look very frightened,” he added. “There get away inside, the lot of you, and thank your stars it is no worse.”