"He would, no doubt, have been a good mussulman, Seymour, if he had been a Turk," said his lordship.
"He couldn't come the right-about face," said Peabody, "having lost his head. It would have been a comical sight to have seen him present arms; pray did he come to the present?"
"No, nor yet to the recover, I'll be sworn," observed Plumstone; "no doubt he grounded his arms and his head too."
"Them chance shots often do the most mischief," remarked Parallel. "Who would have thought that it would have gone right through his chest, so as to leave him a headless trunk. Pray may I ax you whether he was near his box?"
"Well hove and strong, master," exclaimed Sinnitt, joining in the general laugh; "your wit equals your beauty."
"What have I said that's witty now?" returned the veteran; "I can't open my mouth to utter a word of truth, or to ax a question, but I'm called a wit; for my part, I see no wit in it."
"Your anecdote," said his lordship, "reminds me of something similar that I witnessed, when a youngster, at one of the New Zealand Isles. Our captain took a party of us to see his dun-coloured majesty at court. The monarch was seated in a mud, or rather clay building, nearly in a state of nudity, his only covering being an old uniform coat and a huge cocked-hat: his queens—happy man! I think he had seventy—not quite so decently dressed as himself, were squatting, or lying down, in different directions; several of them with such ornaments through their lips and noses, as would have answered the purpose of rings in the decks to a stopper'd best bower cable. I heartily wish some of our court ladies could have seen this royal spectacle. We were ushered in through an entrance, on each side of which was a pile of heads without tails to them, most probably dropped in their hurry to wait upon the king. His majesty was a man of mild countenance, and of most imperturbable gravity; behind him stood a gigantic-looking rascal, with an enormous dragoon's sabre over his shoulder, by way of warning to his majesty's wives not to disturb his majesty's repose, or it was amongst the chances of royalty that he would shorten their bodies and their days at the same moment,—a sort of summary process to make good women of them; and I began to suspect that some of those which we saw at the entrance had once touched noses with his most disgusting majesty,—for a filthier fellow I never set eyes on. You've, no doubt, seen some of those curiously figured heads which grow upon New Zealand shoulders, for many have been brought to England: our skipper, who was a sort of collector of curiosities, was extremely desirous of obtaining one, but he was aware that it was only the head men who were thus marked or tattooed, and he had run his eye over the samples at the doorway, but could not detect one chief who had been deprived of his caput. Nevertheless, by signs and through means of a Scotch interpreter, (for the prime minister to Longchewfishcow was a Scotchman,) his majesty was informed of the captain's wish; and in a short time several natives handsomely tattooed were drawn up within the building: the skipper was requested to select the figures which pleased him most; and he, imagining that the chiefs had been exhibited merely by way of pattern, fixed upon one whose features appeared to have had pricked off upon them every day's run of the children of Israel when cruising in the wilderness. The chief bowed in token of satisfaction at being thus highly honoured; but, before he could raise his head, it sprang away from his shoulders into the captain's arms, with thanks for the compliment yet passing from the lips:—the life-guardsman of the king had obeyed his majesty's signal, and the dragoon's sabre had made sharp work of it."
"It was quick and dead," said the old master. "Now, Mr. Nugent, you may begin your book as soon as you please. I'm sure you have plenty of heads to work upon."
"You talk as if I had no head of my own, master," retorted the lieutenant, somewhat offended; "and with all your wit you shall find that I have got a head."
"So has a scupper-nail," returned the veteran, "but it requires a deal of hammering before you can get it to the leather."