"We have not wanted for that either," replied Percival, "but the French have retaken La Fleur d'Epée, and played the devil with your 43rd Regiment; however, you shall hear all about this after. Meantime, a meal such as befits a Christian, and a glass of good wine, will not be unacceptable I presume, so come off to the frigate at once. Gentlemen," he continued, addressing his party, "you can remain ashore, while I take Mr. Ellis off to the ship—but remember to assemble here the moment she fires a gun or displays her ensign."
He kindly assisted me into the boat, and now my emotion was such, that I almost sank down in the stern-sheets.
"In fenders—out oars," said he, assuming the tiller-rope; "and now give way, lads—give way with a will!"
But the injunction was scarcely required. In their anxiety to place me on board, the brave fellows bent to their oars with such vigour, that by every stroke the long, sharp boat was actually lifted clean out of the water, and we surged through it with the speed of a race-horse. Then, when again I found myself alongside the noble old frigate, and saw her triced-up ports, with their tier of artillery peering through them—her swelling "wooden wall," that towered like a bastion from the water—her well-squared yards and tapered masts, that towered away to the long whiplike pennant that streamed on the wind—I say, when seeing all this, and hearing the sounds of English voices, of a fiddle and scraps of a song or two from the idlers between decks—then, more than all, the soldierly aspect of the smart marine sentinel on the poop in his red coat and well pipe-clayed belts—I felt myself at home indeed, but with the fear that all might prove another dream.
On computing dates, we found that I had been exactly one month and eighteen days on the island.
Once away from it, my past existence there seemed really like a dream, which I could scarcely recall.
CHAPTER LIX.
CAPTAIN CRANKY.
I was received with considerable kindness by Captain Cranky, who, with all his roughness and tyranny, was not without some redeeming points of character. He conveyed me at once to his cabin, furnished me with proper refreshments, clothing, and with that which was of some importance in the days when George III. was king, shaving apparatus, for of all these items I was greatly in need.
After living so long in the open air, I had a sensation of oppression and suffocation in his cabin, and the combined odours of the ship were also overpowering. Afterwards, when at lunch, the captain and Mr. Percival, heard the relation of my adventures on the island, and detailed for the information of Admiral Jervis my account of the loss of the Etna.