"None of these have happened to me," said I faintly, and afraid to tell the truth.
"My eyes and limbs! did you drop from the moon? Here, take another pull at the rum-bottle, and wrap this blanket round you; put on your considering cap, and tell us all about it."
I tasted the rum again, and wrapping about me the coarse blanket, which, though it resembled a Roman toga as a garment, smelt horribly of tar, grease, and tobacco, proceeded to relate the adventures which had befallen me of late, dwelling especially upon the lawless manner in which I had been seized by the city guard of Edinburgh, and delivered by the chamberlain to the lieutenant of the pressing-tender. To all this they listened, with their keen eyes fixed upon me, whiffing their long clay pipes the while, and exchanging strange and somewhat sinister glances from time to time.
I knew not what those deep glances portended; but, in that sequestered beacon, with the mournful gurgling, hissing, and chafing of the waves under and around me, my spirit began to sink, and I felt more abandoned by fate than when in the tender, with worthy Jack Joyce, the marine, to comfort and to counsel me. I remembered the examination of my pockets, when half-senseless, and shrewdly suspected I had fallen into bad hands.
When I had concluded, they continued to smoke in ominous silence, and to pass the rum-bottle to and fro between them. At last, one wiped his huge, blubber-like mouth with the back of his brown, hairy hand, and said,—
"Well, I rather like your giving a tap on the head to that psalm-singing Scotch landshark, lawyer Macfarisee, or what's his name? But it does seem to me, somehow, a twister,—a close laid yarn, that of yours, youngster."
"How?" I asked anxiously, for I was too completely in their power to express indignation at being doubted.
"Why, as to your being pressed, as you say, by sodgers," said the other, who was named Dick Knuckleduster (from a dangerous weapon of iron which he frequently wore, and by which, when fitted closely into the clenched hand, a most deadly blow can be given); "we don't believe a word of it! You have fairly run,—deserted."
"Because I was foully entrapped!"
"Heyday! don't go for to abuse the king's sarvice, my young 'un. I'm an old man-o'-war's man, and know Lufftenant Cranky, well. I sarved with him in the Monmouth line-o'-battle ship, at the Havannah; when I was captain of the mizentop, and know that, tho a little too ready with a curse or the cat, a better hofficer never drew a cutlass or slung his hammock under a beam."