“Here!” he roared furiously. “What is all this?” And he waved the now ragged note in my face.
“Why, that’s a note from the American consul in Jaffa, sir. I asked him to write that I wanted to work for my passage to Egypt.”
The purple anger on the skipper’s face, caused partly by the strain of trying to make himself understood in Arabic, disappeared somewhat at the sound of his own language.
“But,” he went on more quietly, “this note asks the company to sell you a ticket. It’s written in French, and this is what it says—” And he translated it.
“American sailor, are you?” he went on.
I handed him my papers stating that I had been a sailor.
“I’m ready to turn to with the crew, sir,” I put in.
“N—no. That’ll be all right,” said the skipper, stuffing the note into his pocket, as he turned to see what the seamen on the deck below were about.
“Cover that hatch before a sea fills her!” he shouted.
Early next morning I went ashore in Alexandria.