Covered with my tattered and well-worn skin, but still holding sufficiently together for me to be taken for a mandrill.—[Page 147.]
Loud cheers here interrupted the vice-admiral, who, after a brief pause, concluded with these words:—
“I plant here the noble flag of England, which I now call upon you to salute with military honours.”
A number of simultaneous discharges responded to the vice-admiral’s appeal, and the British flag unfurled itself in all its majesty in the courtyard of the verandah.
The ceremony of retaking possession was about coming to a close.
It was at this moment that I left the ruins of the verandah, covered with my tattered and well-worn skin, but still holding sufficiently together for me to be taken for a mandrill by all the English present.
They were all struck with astonishment on seeing an ape of the largest kind thrust himself into the midst of their solemn meeting. Their surprise turned into laughter, which all the detachment joined in, when they heard me speak English to the vice-admiral. A speechifying mandrill! well, what next? thought they.
“Who are you?” inquired the admiral, thoroughly embarrassed by the nature of the being—half man, half ape—which addressed him.