'Long may he remain so!' said I, revengefully, as we entered Jack's quarters.
In a few minutes I had refreshed myself, changed my attire, anil sat down to such a repast as Jack's servant could prepare in haste; we lighted our cigars; Jack drank his wine out of a tumbler, and I mine out of a cream-jug, as our utensils were meanly and in a dilapidated condition. Jack smoked in silence and patience, waiting to hear a story which I knew not how to begin, as I was loth—exceedingly loth—to account for that remarkable cruise undertaken by Callum and me at night; so there was a long silence, during which Jack whiffed away, and then he stared inquiringly at me.
'You sigh?' said he; 'what the deuce is the matter? Fill your cup with wine again—and drink, my boy. Remember the mess-room song—
'Since the chief end of life is to live and be jolly,
To be sad about trifles is trifling and folly.'
En avant! What have you been about, Allan? We heard that you had been making love to a Haidee—a flower of "the Isles of Greece," or some Turkish odalisque—but you lost her? Never mind, my boy—she'll soon prove, "though lost to sight, to memory queer," when we change quarters.'
I quieted Jack's raillery by a grave relation of my adventures; and his wonder, anger, and resentment were excited alternately by the horrors I had undergone, and by the heartless assassination of poor Clavering; but the moment I mentioned the danger of the yacht, he started to his feet, exclaiming—
'O hang it! this can never be permitted! We can't march for Heraclea to-morrow.'
'Of course not, with this devilish business on the tapis.'
'It is our duty—our bounden duty—to march at once with every man we have, and to save Sir Horace and his people from these butcherly Mohammedans.'
'March?—sail you mean!' said I.