They hadn't any news of the pirates either to cheer us up. They had had one look for them, but had found nothing, and were now waiting for fresh orders.
Just before it got dark someone sung out that the Captain was coming back with the Fleet Paymaster. I hadn't the courage to go up on deck to let him see me, but just peeped out of a gunroom scuttle as he came alongside.
He was so broad and big, that he seemed to fill the galley's stern sheets. He was wearing the same stained old shooting-suit he always wore at Upton Overy—I never could remember seeing him in any other—Blucher, thinner than ever, was squatting between his knees, and the Fleet Paymaster, with white beard and a still older shooting-suit, was sitting next to him. He threw away the stump of a cigar, helped Blucher scramble on to the ladder, gave a gruff order to the coxswain, and followed Blucher. He looked so stern, and I felt so afraid of him, that I popped my head in again lest he should see me, and waited, hot and cold, expecting him to send for me. I wasn't so silly as to think that he would want to see me, but I knew that he would want to hear all about Mrs. Lester and the girls.
Jim knew how frightened I was, and promised that directly I was sent for, he and Dicky would bring along the packing-case which Mrs. Lester had sent, and put it outside his cabin door, so that I could get at it very quickly.
And then I remembered that pot of cranberry jam, and hunted for it in my chest. I couldn't find it anywhere. Jim asked what I was looking for, and he helped too. Suddenly he stopped, his face quite white.
"Was it a white jar with the top covered with brown paper?"
"Yes, it was," I told him, and knew that something awful was going to happen.
"I emptied it," he groaned; "ate the whole lot, half-way from Aden."
I went cold all over, and just then the sentry sang out that the Captain wanted me, and I shuffled aft, knocked at the door, heard the Captain's growl "Come in!" could hardly turn the handle for fright, went in, and stood before him absolutely speechless.
He was reading a letter—we'd brought a mail with us in the Tyne—and didn't look up for a moment or two, and just in that time, jolly old Blucher stretched himself, came over, smelt me, got up on his hind legs and licked my face before I could prevent him. I could have hugged him, because that did the trick, and made me forget all about the jam and the telegram—for the moment.