“But when are we to sail?” asked Martin.
“With the first wind,” he replied, leaving us.
“Prabu’s glum: I hope he is not going to play the tyrant, now he has us cooped up in this nutshell,” said Martin.
“Well, I hope not,” said I; “but sneaking on board in the darkness of night is rather an ominous entrance upon a new career.”
“Oh, bother! Now you are at your witch business again, Claud, so I sha’n’t say another word;” and stretching himself at full length upon the matting, with a bamboo pillow for his head, he very soon went off to sleep—an example I speedily followed.
I have often heard people declare they could not sleep in strange beds or places for the first few nights. Only let them have to fly away from their homes, under the belief that it is to save their lives, have a long day’s fatigue and anxiety, and at length find themselves in a place of security, and they will tell a different story. As for my brother and I, as the sailors say, we ran right round the reel, not once waking till the middle of the next day, when the sun was at its hottest—so hot in those latitudes, that you could broil a shad on the decks.
“Hilloa! Claud, this don’t look like tyranny, at all events: that Prabu must be a good fellow, after all,” said Martin, as, opening his eyes, he saw a dish of delicious-looking fruits placed at the other end of the cabin, ready for our first meal. Then we arose, but ere we had dressed, a Hindu boy came to us, bringing cups, boiling water, and tea, which we mixed after the Chinese fashion—namely, placing a couple of pinches in the cup, and then pouring the boiling water thereon.
Well, we had partaken of our first cup, and were preparing the second; Martin was pouring the boiling water into the cup, when suddenly it danced out of the saucer, upsetting its contents over his hand.
“Hang it! what’s that?” he exclaimed, shaking his hand with pain.
I jumped up, frightened; was as quickly capsized; but the cause at once flitting through my mind, I, laughing, said, “that it was the lurching of the vessel, and we haven’t got our sea-legs yet.”