“May I give it him, sir?” asked the man.
“No; not on any account,” replied Mr Vernon; “but do you, D’Arcy, light one and put it in his mouth.”
As I stooped down to follow my superior’s directions, I fancied the pirate would have tried to bite off my fingers, he gave so vindictive and fierce a look at me. As I stood by him, I asked, “Has your mate, whom you call Dawson, ever been known by the name of Myers?”
“What’s that to you, youngster? Most men have more than one name,” was his somewhat equivocal answer.
His manner, however, rather confirmed me in my suspicion that the man I had seen on deck was no other than the daring smuggler we had so often tried in vain to capture in the cutter. Having thoroughly examined the ship, we transferred Delano and five of his crew into the schooner, while the remainder were secured on board the brig, into which Adam Stallman and Sharpe, with ten of our people, were sent as a prize crew. Before sailing, Mr Vernon went on shore to report to the English Consul, as well as to the Turkish authorities, what had occurred. He got great credit from the merchants for the mode in which he had captured the pirate. It appeared that even there the conduct of the crew had begun to excite suspicion; but as it happened to be nobody’s business to inquire into the affair, they would have escaped, had we not opportunely arrived, that very day.
No information could be obtained of the missing mate. He had not been seen to land, and no one had heard of him. The dinghy, however, having disappeared from the brig’s stern, was sufficient proof that he had effected his escape in her. I was too much occupied all the time I was at Smyrna, to make many observations about the place. Figs are the great staple produce and subject of conversation for the greater part of the year, enlivened now and then by a visit from the plague, and then people talk about that; but at the time I speak of, I do not know that it had ever occurred to the inhabitants that they had the means in their own hands of avoiding its constant presence by properly draining their city. I have since, from the observations I have made in my course through life, come to the belief that there is not an ill which afflicts mankind which they have not the means of mitigating, if not of avoiding altogether.—But to return to my narrative. As there was nothing more to detain us at Smyrna, the two vessels made sail, and shaped a course for Malta.