“Any one hurt?”
“No one killed exactly, but we're very dry.”
“Can you hold your men?”
The man turned round and looked at his command with a grin. There were seventy of them, all dusty and unkempt.
“We sha'n't sack this ash-bin, if that's what you mean. We're mostly gentlemen here, though we don't look it.”
“All right. Send the head of this post, or fort, or village, or whatever it is, aboard, and make what arrangements you can for your men.”
“We'll find some barrack accommodation somewhere. Hullo! You in the litter there, go aboard the gunboat.” The command wheeled round, pushed through the dislocated soldiery, and began to search through the village for spare huts.
The little man in the litter came aboard smiling nervously. He was in the fullest of full uniform, with many yards of gold lace and dangling chains. Also he wore very large spurs; the nearest horse being not more than four hundred miles away. “My children,” said he, facing the silent soldiery, “lay aside your arms.”
Most of the men had dropped them already and were sitting down to smoke. “Let nothing,” he added in his own tongue, “tempt you to kill these who have sought your protection.”
“Now,” said Bai-Jove-Judson, on whom the last remark was lost, “will you have the goodness to explain what the deuce you mean by all this nonsense?”