Still, I think
some credit is due for the alternative adopted. During the whole
voyage, I had kept a reckoning, and paper and pencil were always in my
pocket, in readiness to catch a moment to finish a day's work. I wrote
as follows on a piece of paper, therefore, as fast as possible, and
dropped the billet on the quarter-deck, by enclosing a copper in the
scrawl, _cents_ then being in their infancy. I had merely
written--"The brig's forecastle is filled with armed men, hid behind
the bulwarks!" Captain Digges heard the fall of the copper, and
looking up--nothing takes an officer's eyes aloft quicker than to find
anything coming out of a top!--he saw me pointing to the paper. I was
rewarded for this liberty by an approving nod. Captain Digges read
what I had written, and I soon observed Neb and the cook filling the
engine with boiling water. This job was no sooner done than a good
place was selected on the quarter-deck for this singular implement of
war, and then a hail came from the brig.
"Vat zat sheep is?" demanded some one from the brig.
"The Tigris of Philadelphia, from Calcutta _home_. What brig is
_that_?"
"_La Folie--corsair Francais_. From vair you come?"
"From Calcutta. And where are _you_ from?"
"Guadaloupe. Vair you go, eh?"
"Philadelphia.
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