“Paddy Adair?” cried Jack, almost bursting into tears. “It’s Paddy himself.”
“Paddy Adair, hurrah! hurrah!” was echoed from all the boats.
“Paddy, my dear boy, where have you come from?” asked Hemming, with unwonted gentleness in his tone. Jack had got Terence’s hand, and would not let it go.
“The last place I came from was the poop of that Turkish ship which is burning away there; then I went up into the air, I believe; and lastly, you have hauled me out of the water; the remainder of my adventures would take some time to tell, so you had better try and pick up any more of my shipmates who may still be alive. There were a good lot of us altogether turned into sky-rockets.”
Paddy had not forgotten his habit of joking. The boats altogether picked up some fifteen or twenty Turks, whom they landed on the beach, with the exception of those who had been injured, whom in mercy they conveyed on board the frigate. A considerable number had been drowned from leaping off the forecastle when the ship was in flames, and being unable to swim. Altogether a very large number of the crew must have been lost.
“But, Paddy,” said Jack, looking earnestly up in Adair’s face, while he still held his hand, “you haven’t really turned into a Turk, have you?”
“Give me a boiled leg of pork, and some pease pudding, and prove me,” answered Terence, laughing. “No, indeed; these wide nether garments and this red cap are the chief Turkish things about me, and the latter I thus gladly cast from me, and as soon as I can get a pair to supply their place, I’ll gladly throw the others after the cap.” Paddy as he spoke hove the fez into the sea with a look of intense satisfaction. “If you knew what I have gone through, you would not be surprised at my pleasure of getting rid of everything to remind me of it,” he observed.
The boats made the best of their way out to the frigate, to report what had occurred.
“What have you been about? what has happened?” were the questions eagerly asked, as they got alongside and handed up the wounded Turks.
“Why, we have been and found Paddy Adair,” shouted Jack, unable any longer to restrain his feelings.