What I had taken for blood had been the water from the burst hose. I must say I was relieved. My new friend babbled any amount of joyous information into me before I quite got my wind back. He rubbed his hands and clapped me on the shoulder. But his heart was kind, and he became concerned at my collapsed state.
“I say, you don’t think my chaps broke some of your ribs, do you? Let me feel.”
And then I managed to tell him something of Seraphina that he would listen to.
“What, what?” he said. “Oh, heavens and earth! there’s your girl. Of course.... Hey, bo’sun, rig a whip and chair on the yardarm to take a lady on board. Bear a hand. A lady! yes, a lady. Confound it, don’t lose your wits, man. Look over the starboard rail, and you will see a lady alongside with a Dago in a small boat. Let the Dago come on board, too; the gentleman here says he’s a good sort. Now, do you understand?”
He talked to me a good deal more; told me that they had made a prisoner—“a tall, comical chap; wears his hair like an old aunt of mine, a bunch of curls flapping on each side of his face”—and then said that he must go and report to Captain Williams, who had gone into his wife’s stateroom. The name struck me. I said:
“Is this ship the Lion?”
“Aye, aye. That’s her. She is,” several seamen answered together, casting curious glances from their work.
“Tell your captain my name is Kemp,” I shouted after Sebright with what strength of lung I had.
What luck! Williams was the jolly little ship’s captain I was to have dined with on the day of execution on Kingston Point—the day I had been kidnapped. It seemed ages ago. I wanted to get to the side to look after Seraphina, but I simply couldn’t remember how to stand. I sat on the hatch, looking at the seamen.
They were clearing the ropes, collecting the lamps, picking up knives, handspikes, crowbars, swabbing the decks with squashy flaps. A bare-footed, bare-armed fellow, holding a bundle of brass-hilted cutlasses under his arm, had lost himself in the contemplation of my person.