A Pirate of the Caribbees

A Pirate of the Caribbees
By Harry Collingwood
CHAPTER ONE.
A FRIGATE FIGHT IN MID-ATLANTIC.
"Eight bells, there, sleepers; d'ye hear the news?--Rouse and bitt, my
hearties! Show a leg! Eight bells, Courtenay! and Keene says he will be
much obliged if you will relieve him as soon as possible!"
These words, delivered in a tone of voice that was a curious alternation
of a high treble with a preternaturally deep bass--due to the fact that the
speaker's voice was "breaking"--and accompanied by the reckless
banging of a tin pannikin upon the deal table that adorned the
midshipmen's berth of H.M. frigate Althea, instantly awoke me to the
disagreeable consciousness that my watch below had come to an end,
especially as the concluding portion of the harangue was addressed to
me personally, and accompanied by a most uncompromising thump
upon the side of my hammock. So I surlily growled an answer--
"All right, young 'un; there's no occasion to make all that hideous row!
Just see if you can make yourself useful by finding Black Peter, will
you, and telling him to brew some coffee."
The lad was turning away to do my bidding when a pattering of naked
feet became audible as their owner approached, while a husky voice
ejaculated--
"Who's dat axin' for Brack Petah? Was it you, Mistah Courtenay?" And
at the same instant the shining, good-natured, grinning visage of a
gigantic negro appeared in the narrow doorway, through which the
fellow instantly passed into the berth, bearing a big pot of steaming hot
coffee.

"Ay, you black demon, I it was," answered I. "Is that coffee you have
there? Then find my cup and fill it, there's a good fellow, and I'll owe
you a glass of grog."
"Hi, yi!" answered the black, his eyes sparkling and his teeth gleaming
hilariously, "who you call `brack demon,' eh, sah? Who eber hear of
brack demon turnin' out at four o'clock in de mornin' to make coffee for
young gentermen, eh? And about de grog, Mistah Courtenay; how
many glasses do dis one make dat you now owe me, eh, sah? Ansah me
dat, sah. You don' keep no account, I expec's, sah, but I do. Dis one
makes seben, Mistah Courtenay, and I'd be much obleege, sah, if you'd
pay some of dem off. It am all bery well to say you'll owe 'em to me,
sah, but what's de use ob dat if you don' nebber pay me, eh?"
"Pay you, you rascal?" shouted I, as I sprang to the deck and began
hastily to scramble into my clothes, "do you mean to say that you have
the impudence to actually expect to be paid? Is it not honour and
reward enough that a gentleman condescends to become indebted to
you? Pay, indeed! why, what is the world coming to, I wonder?"
"Bravo, Courtenay, well spoken!" shouted young Lindsay, the lad who
had so ruthlessly interrupted my slumbers, "how well you express
yourself; you ought to be in Parliament, man! Give it him again; bring
him to his bearings. The impudence of the fellow is getting to be past
endurance! Now then, you black swab, where's the sugar? Do you
suppose we can drink that stuff without sugar?"
After a search of some duration the sugar was eventually found in a
locker, in loving contiguity to an open box of blacking, some boot
brushes, a box of candles, a few fragments of brown windsor,--one of
which had somehow found its way into the bowl,--and a few other
fragrant trifles. In my haste to get on deck, and betrayed by the feeble
light of the purser's dip, which just sufficed to render the darkness
visible, I managed to convey this stray morsel of soap into my coffee
along with the sugar wherewith I intended to sweeten it, and only
discovered what I had done barely in time to avoid gulping down the
soap along with the scalding liquid into which I had plunged it. A
midshipman, however, soon loses all sense of squeamishness, so I

contented myself with muttering a sea blessing upon the head of the
unknown individual who had deposited this "matter in the wrong
place," and dashed up the hatchway to relieve the impatient Keene.
I shivered and instinctively buttoned my jacket closely about me as I
stepped out on deck, for, mild and bland as the temperature actually
was, it felt raw and chill after the close, stifling atmosphere of the
midshipman's berth. It was very dark, for it was only just past the date
of the new moon, and the thin silver sickle--which was all that the coy
orb then showed of herself--had set some hours before; moreover, there
was a thin veil of mist or sea fog hanging upon the surface of the