"Well! I never did see!" ejaculated the bo'sun, when Jack hailed him. "Bless my eyes, sir, but I thought as you was gone to glory—leastways to Davy Jones, and so did we all. How did you go for to come to this here dirty old hulk of a French prison, sir?"
Jack told the whole story.
"What happened to you and the boat?" he asked.
"Why, sir, we waited for you three hours or more, as we was bid, and when you didn't come back, I said as how we ought to go up along and find you."
"No, you didn't!" interrupted Turley; "that was me. You said our orders was to wait for Mr. Hardy three hours, and the three hours being up, 'twas our dooty to go back and tell Mr. Blake. There, then, old Sparrow-grass!"
Evidently Turley supposed that on French ground the claims of discipline might be ignored. But he was mistaken.
"What do you mean by Sparrow-grass?" demanded Jack as sternly as he could.
"Well, sir, I know that his rightful name is Ben Babbage, but among ourselves, sir, when we thinks of it, we calls him Turnip—"
"That'll do, Turley. You'll call Mr. Babbage by his right name, here and anywhere else; remember that. Go on, Babbage."
"Well, sir, as I was saying, I said as how we ought to go up along and find you. So go we did; but though we spent a couple of hours a-prowling round that there tower, and about the village, and went up to the Grange and all, never a word did we hear of you. So we had to give it up, and we went back and reported you missing to Mr. Blake. He put in at Luscombe himself, and raised a deal of dust, sir, but 'twas no good. So he reported you to the admiral at Portsmouth as missing, and we got another officer in your place, a slack-twisted young—beg pardon, sir, I was a-going to do what Turley done, sir, call names; but I won't—leastways, not in your hearing, sir."