Looking Seaward Again | Page 8

morning?" asked the captain.
"Ah, it is very bad news," replied Yaunie. "That fool Farquarson," pointing to where the other steamer lay, "speaks all the time about what happened when you went from the port without permission. He say that he was aboard the gunboat asking for a torpedo channel-pilot, and that he could not get one because they were firing at you all the time. They asked him the name of the steamer, but he told some other. I say to him he was wrong, but he say no; and he will jabb, as you call it."
"Well, Yaunie, what's to be done? What is the remedy?"
"What's to be done--I don' know what you call the other. I say, get the steamer loaded quick and away. I don' tink trouble, but O Chresto! his tong go like steam-winch, and you much better Black Sea dan here."
"Very excellent advice, Yaunie. Now let us go on deck."
A sudden inspiration came to the captain, which caused him to exclaim--
"Yaunie, I'll ask him to eat with us. This is our English mode of settling obstacles, and making and retaining friendships. Don't you think it a good suggestion?"
"Do anything you like. Give him the Sacrament, but keep him quiet. He is very dangerous now."
The captain of the other steamer was on deck, and as soon as he got his eye on them he bellowed out in terms of unjustifiable familiarity--
"Hallo, old fellow, how are ye? So they've not sent ye to the silver mines yet?"
"No," smartly retorted the captain, with some warmth, "they've not, or I wouldn't have been here. But they d--d soon will if you don't keep your mouth shut!"
Without heeding what was said to him, the distinguished commander of the new-comer slapped his thigh vigorously with his right hand, and laughed out--
"By Joshua, you were in a tight corner, and will never be nearer being popped! [sunk]. They were furious at me, and would have blown all England up because I said I didn't know who it was."
"Oh," said the _Claverhouse's_ commander, "that is old history. Come aboard and have breakfast with me."
"All right," said Farquarson, "I'll have a wash up, and then come. But what a darned funny thing not to blow you up with the mines. I just said to my mate, they are a lot of lazy beasts, or there's something wrong with the wires. But the mate said, 'No; he's taken them unawares.' 'Unawares be d----d!' said I; 'he's not taken these gunboat chaps unawares, for I couldn't get them to stop firing.'"
"He's off again!" interjected Yaunie.
"All right, all right!" replied the impatient captain to his voluble compatriot. "Come to breakfast as quick as you can, there's a good fellow."
Farquarson got to the companion-way--_i.e._ the entrance to the cabin--and was about to make some further remarks when the captain of the Claverhouse said to Yaunie, "Let's go below, for God's sake! As long as he sees us he'll keep on."
When they got into the cabin, the burly pilot was almost inarticulate. All he could say was--
"My goodness, what a tong! He must be dangerous to his owners. I have never see such a tong."
In due course the irrepressible person appeared, and was received with professional cordiality. He had no sooner taken his seat at the table than he became convulsed with laughter, slapped his hand on the table, and shouted--
"By Cocker, I'll never forget it! The rage of them Russians, and the way they blazed away their shot, and it never going within miles of where you were! Miles, mind you!"
Yaunie and his friend looked at each other in savage despair, as he persisted in reeling off quantities of disconnected incoherencies. But relief to his perturbed friends came when the steward placed the breakfast on the table. He stopped the flow of narration, and exclaimed--
"Ah! that's what I like--dry hash and a bit of ham with an egg or two. I was just saying to my mate--who's as big a born fool as ever drank whisky--there's not a better meal made at sea than dry hash."
By this time his mouth was full, and it was difficult to know what he wished to convey. His eating was quite as boundless as his talk, though he could not do both at once. Having finished a good sound plate of hash, he passed his plate along for some ham and eggs, and asked his host if he did not observe what a good appetite he had compared with what he used to have.
"Yes," said the captain, in blissful ignorance of what he was saying. "Your appetite was never very good. I'm glad to see you making such a good breakfast."
"Well, you know," replied the guest, "the worst of me is, I appear to be unsociable when I'm eating, as I cannot both