JAMBE DE BOIS.
"Now, Master Abraham, if you try that trick again, I will make free with this mopstick, and break your head. Why, look here, cook, if he has not been teaching the child to chew tobacco! I suppose they will be asking Mr Weevil to serve him out his allowance of grog next."
It was Lennox who had spoken. Lanyard rung the bell. "What's the matter now, steward?"
"Oh, sir, they are massacring that poor little fellow, and teaching him all manner of abominations. But it's all in kindness, sir; so one really cannot be so angry with them, as"——
"Never mind then, get breakfast. What sort of morning is it?"
"Quite calm, sir."
"And the frigate?"
"About a mile to the northward of us, sir. The boat that was sent on board with Mr Donovan this morning, and to bring hay for the sheep, is now coming back again, sir."
Presently I heard the splash of the oars, then the noise and rumble of their being laid in; and the crew having got on board, she was hoisted up. By this time I was on deck; it was about seven o'clock in the morning, and, as the steward had reported, quite calm. "Heigh, ho! another roasting day, Mr Marline," said I, as I swept the horizon with the glass, round every part of which the junction of sea and sky was obliterated by a hot quivering blue haze, through which the frigate twinkled, her white streak glimmering like a ribbon streaming in the wind, and her hull trembling, as it were, in every atom: while her masts appeared to twist like snakes, the small wavy motion beginning at the deck, and flowing upwards towards the mastheads.
"Yes, sir," said the midshipman, "every appearance of a broiling day, indeed."