"No; can't say as I have," answered Bob; "though I've heard somut about 'em, too:—what rig are they?"
"Why, for the matter o' that," said Joe, laughing, "they're broomstick-rig as soon as they makes a brush of it; but I'm blow'd if I hadn't onest as pretty a spree with a whole fleet of mummies as ever any man could fall aboard of in this world, or t'other either."
"What was it, Joe?" asked the boatswain's mate eagerly. "Pay it out handsomely, messmate; but don't pitch us any of Bob's devil's consarns;—let's have it all truth and honesty."
"I'd scorn to deceive you, Jack, or anybody else o' my shipmates wot's seamen," responded Joe reproachfully. "It's all as true as the skipper's a lord, and looks, alongside o' Johnny Cropoh there, like a man alongside of a—But, there,—it arn't honourable to make delusions; and so, shipmates, here goes for a yarn. I was coxswain in the pinnace of the ould Ajax, the Honourable Captain Cochrane, at that 'ere time when Sir Richard Bickerton took command of the fleet, and a flotilla was employed in co-operating with the troops again' Alexandria. Well, shipmates, I was always fond of a bit of gab; and so, the night we lay at a grapplin', waiting for daylight to begin the attack, my officer gets to talking about the place, and what a grand consarn it was in former days for gould and jewels, and sich like; and thinks I to myself, mayhap the Lords of the Admirality will take all that 'ere into account in regard o' the prize-money: and then he overhauls a good deal about the hobbylisks and Clipsypaddyree's Needle, and what not, that I'm blow'd if it didn't quite bamfoozle my larning. Well, we'd four or five days' hard work in the fighting way, and then there was a truce, and my officer run the pinnace aboard of a French prize laden with wine and brandy; so we starts the water out of one of the breakers and fills it with the real stuff, and I man-handled a pair of sodgers' canteens chock-full; and the prize-master, Muster Handsail, an old shipmate of mine, gives me a two-gallon keg to my own cheek, and I stows 'em all snug and safe abaft in the box, and kivers 'em up with my jacket to keep 'em warm. Well, it was just getting dusk in the evening when the skipper claps us alongside, and orders the leftenant to land me well up the lake, so as I might carry a letter from him across to a shore party as manned one of the heavy batteries away inland, at the back of the town.
"Now, in course, shipmates, I warn't by no manner o' means piping my eye to get a cruise on terror firmer, seeing as mayhap I might chance to pick up some 'o' the wee things aboot the decks' as likely wud get me a bottle o' rum in England,—for, my thoughts kept running on the gould and jewels the leftenant spun the yarn about, and I'd taken a pretty good whack of brandy aboard the prize, though I warn't not in the least tosticated, but ounly a little helevated, just enough to make me walk steady and comfortable. So we run the boat's nose on to the beach, and I catches up my jacket and my canteens, leaving the keg to the marcy of Providence, and strongly dubersome in my mind that I had bid it an etarnal farewell. Howsomever, I shins away with my two canteens filled chock ablock; and 'Bear a hand, Joel' says the leftenant, 'though I'm blessed if I know what course you're to take, seeing as it's getting as dark as a black fellow's phisog.'—'Never fear, yer honour,' says I; 'ounly let me catch sight o' Clipsypaddyree's Needle for a landmark, and I'm darned if I won't find myself somewhere, anyhow;' and away I starts, shipmates, hand over hand, happy go lucky—all's one to Joe! But it got darker and darker, and the wind came down in sudden gusts, like a marmaid a-sighing; so, to clear my eyes, and keep all square, I was in course compelled to take a nip every now and then out of the canteen, till at last it got so dark, and the breeze freshened into a stiff gale, that the more I took to lighten my way and enable me to steer a straight course, I'm blessed, shipmates, if I didn't grow more dizzy; and as for my headway, why, I believes I headed to every point in the compass:—it was the dark night and the cowld breeze as did it, messmates."
"No doubt in the world on it, Joe," assented Jack Sheavehole; "for if anything could have kept you in good sailing trim, it was the brandy, and the more especially in token o' your drinking it neat;—them dark nights do play the very devil with a fellow's reckoning ashore, in regard of the course and distance, and makes him as apt to steer wild, like a hog in a squall."
"You're right, Jack," continued Nighthead; "and anybody as hears you, may know you speaks from experience o' the thing. Howsomever, there I was,—not a sparkler abroad in the heavens, not a beacon to log my bearings by; and, as I said afore, there I was in a sort of no-man's-land, backing and filling to drop clear of shoals, sometimes just at touch-and-go, and then brought-up all standing, like a haystack a-privateering. At last the weather got into a downright passion, with thunder, lightning, and hail; and 'I'm blessed, Joe,' says I to myself, 'if snug moorings under some kiver or other, if it's ounly a strip o' buntin', wouldn't be wastly superior to this here!' But there was no roadstead nor place of shelter, and the way got more rougherer and rougherer, in regard o' the wrecks of ould walls and ould buildings, till I'm blessed if I didn't think I was getting into the latitude and longitude of the dominions of the 'long-shore Davy Jones."
"My eyes, Joe!" exclaimed Martingal, replenishing his quid from an ample "'bacca" box, "but you was hard up, my boy!"
"Indeed and I was, Bob," responded the other; "and I'm blowed if every thing as I seed about me didn't begin to dance jigs and hornpipes to the whistling of the wind, that I thought all manner of bedevilment had come over me, and so I tries to dance too, to keep 'em company. But it wouldn't do, shipmates, and I capsizes in a sudden squall, and down I went, headforemost."