“Well, we must make the best of it, my lads,” said Mr Collinson, walking into the place.
“There’s just one thing you must remember,” shouted the sergeant: “don’t be playing tricks, and turning out the horse. The owner made that a bargain; and he requires shelter as much as you do.”
“Well, well!” answered the English lieutenant; “complaining is beneath us.”
“We shall not do badly, sir,” observed Jack, as he surveyed the place; “we don’t, however, like it for you, sir; but we will get some straw and some planks, and make it as comfortable-like as we can and rig up a table. It’s a shame, that it is, to turn a British officer into such a place; and the next time we get alongside a French man-of-war, in the Lilly, won’t we give it her, that’s all!”
“I hope, my lads, we may have the opportunity before long,” said the lieutenant. “I am glad you take things so well. Perhaps they will mend. It’s a compliment, I suspect, they pay us, to bring us here; for they have heard of the way English sailors have made their escape from prison, so they consider it is necessary to carry us all this distance from the coast.”
It was nearly dark when they arrived, so that they had not much time to get their habitation in order. The night passed quietly enough, except that they were startled, every now and then, by the asthmatic cough of the horse, the croaking of the bull-frogs in a neighbouring pond, and the sound of the sentry’s musket, as he grounded it every now and then, when he halted, after pacing up and down in front of the hut. Bill was awoke by hearing a voice shouting—
“Hillo, shipmates, ahoy! Where are they, blacky? What! In there? Then they are as bad off as we are.”
Bill jumped up, and went to the door. There he saw an English sailor, who was, however, a stranger to him.
“Hillo! Boy,” said the sailor, “what cheer? What has brought you here?”
Bill told him what had occurred.