After long ages, so it seemed to the boy, he woke again, coming back to life slowly. A Spanish woman was looking at him earnestly, and by her side stood Long Andrew. When Roger was sufficiently recovered to hear what had happened, he found that he and Andrew were the only ones who had been saved. Some of the fishermen had rushed into the surf, and dragged out himself and Captain Firebrace, who had been swept through the opening between the rocks, fast locked together. But the pirate Captain had been battered against the rock, and when they drew him out, he was dead.
It would take too long to relate Roger's adventures before he reached his home, which he eventually did. Long Andrew kept to himself the fact that the wrecked ship was the redoubtable "Morning Star," and when he took service again, it was in a more honest way. One thing Roger learned from him, namely that Firebrace was an assumed name, not the pirate captain's true one.
"He was Devonshire born, same as you and me," said Andrew, "and I believe he hailed from Paignton. Otherwise, my lad, likely you'd ha' been given a berth in Davy Jones's locker, 'stead of on the 'Morning Star.'"
Sheila Braine.
[How a Drummer Boy Saved a Regiment]
by G. A. Henty
HOW A DRUMMER BOY SAVED A REGIMENT.
By G. A. Henty.
"ARE you tired, Tommy?" a soldier asked a little drummer boy who was seated on a rock watching a regiment that had just fallen out preparing to bivouac. It was a newly-arrived corps, and had come up from the coast by forced marches to join the army which, having won the battle of Vittoria, was now engaged at various points among the Pyrenees with the enemy, who were trying to bar their passage.
Tommy Pearson was the youngest member of the regiment, being but eleven years old. His father had been the drum-major of the corps, and Tommy was a general favourite, and at his father's death, three weeks before the regiment left England, the colonel was asked by a deputation from the men to allow Tommy to accompany them, promising that he should be no trouble on the march. Young though he was, the boy could handle the drumsticks as well as many of those years older than himself, and the colonel, after some hesitation, granted the request, saying to the major: "One can always find a place on one of the baggage-wagons for him; his weight will make no difference one way or the other to the team; he is a bright little chap, and we may consider him a legacy to the regiment from his father, whom we all liked and respected."
So Tommy, to his great elation, was permitted to go. For the last three years he had, although not on the strength of the regiment, marched in uniform like the other drummers, and many an exclamation of amusement or admiration had been uttered as the little chap walked stiff and upright in the front rank.