“Never you mind! Heave ahead, lads; steer a straight course for the boat.”
In a moment the whole body of us were in motion. A seaman on either hand grasped me by the arm, and immediately behind were the other two pressed men.
“Tom Martin,” I roared out, hoping that the old fellow might yet be within hearing; “you see what has happened. For God’s sake report to Captain Round.”
“Who’s that bawling?” angrily and huskily shouted the young officer in the pea-coat.
I marched for a few paces in silence, mad and degraded; bewildered, too; nay, I may say confounded almost to distraction by the hurry of the astonishing experiences which I had encountered within the last hour.
“What ship do you belong to?” I presently said, addressing a big bull-faced man who guarded me on the left.
“The frigate out yonder,” he answered in a deep, wary voice; “keep a civil tongue in your head and give no trouble, and what’s wrong will be righted, if wrong there be,” and he looked at me by the light of a second lamp that the company of us was tramping past.
“I am mate of the Royal Brunswicker now probably getting her anchor astern of your frigate,” said I. “Cannot I make your officer believe me, for then he might set me aboard?”
The fellow on my right rumbled with laughter as though he would choke. We trudged onward, making for that part of the beach upon which King Street opens. Presently one of the pressed men in my wake began to curse; he used horrible language. With frightful imprecations he demanded to know why he should be obliged to fight for a king whose throat he thirsted to cut; why he should be obliged to fight for a nation which he didn’t belong to, whose people he hated; why he was to be converted into a bloody piratical man-of-war’s man, instead of being left to follow the lawful, respectable calling of a merchant seaman——
A mighty thump on the back, that sounded like the blow of a handspike upon a hatch-cover, knocked his hideous speech into a single half-choked growl, and the young gentleman with the refined but husky voice called out: