‘“Ay, but I don’t,” I says, and I slacked nothing.
‘He was a masterpiece. Seein’ I was for goin’ on, he hails a Bridport hoy beyond us and shouts, “George! Oh, George! Wing that duck. He’s fat!” An’ true as we’re all here, that squatty Bridport boat rounds to acrost our bows, intending to stop us by means o’ shooting.
‘My Aunt looks over our rail. “George,” she says, “you finish with your enemies afore you begin on your friends.”
‘Him that was laying the liddle swivel-gun at us sweeps off his hat an’ calls her Queen Bess, and asks if she was selling liquor to pore dry sailors. My Aunt answered him quite a piece. She was a notable woman.
‘Then he come up—his long pennant trailing overside—his waistcloths and netting tore all to pieces where the Spanishers had grappled, and his sides black-smeared with their gun-blasts like candle-smoke in a bottle. We hooked on to a lower port and hung.
‘“Oh, Mus’ Drake! Mus’ Drake,” I calls up.
‘He stood on the great anchor cathead, his shirt open to the middle, and his face shining like the sun.
‘“Why, Sim!” he says. Just like that—after twenty year! “Sim,” he says, "what brings you?”
‘“Pudden,” I says, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. “You told me to bring cannon-shot next time, an’ I’ve brought ’em.”
‘He saw we had. He ripped out a fathom and a half o’ brimstone Spanish, and he swung down on our rail, and he kissed me before all his fine young captains. His men was swarming out of the lower ports ready to unload us. When he saw how I’d considered all his likely wants, he kissed me again.