Page:Dickens - A Child s History of England, 1900.djvu/673

Rh a dog, and roll himself on his back on the sand. It was trying not to kick him, but I gave Charker the word, "Double-quick, Harry!" and we got down to the water's edge, and got on board the sloop.

By some means or other, she had sprung such a leak, that no pumping would keep her free; and what between the two fears that she would go down in the harbor, and that, even if she did not, all the supplies she had brought for the little colony would be destroyed by the sea-water as it rose in her, there was great confusion. In the midst of it. Captain Maryon was heard hailing from the beach. He had been carried down in his hammock, and looked very bad; but he insisted on being stood there on his feet; and I saw him, myself, come off in the boat, sitting upright in the stern-sheets, as if nothing was wrong with him.

A quick sort of council was held, and Captain Maryon soon resolved that we must all fall to work to get the cargo out, and when that was done, the guns and heavy matters must be got out, and that the sloop must be hauled ashore and careened, and the leak stopped. We were all mustered (the pirate-chase party volunteering), and told off into parties, with so many hours of spell and so many hours of relief, and we all went at it with a will. Christian George King was entered one of the party in which I worked, at his own request, and he went at it with as good a will as any of the rest. He went at it with so much heartiness, to say the truth, that he rose in my good opinion almost as fast as the water rose in the ship. Which was fast enough, and faster.

Mr. Commissioner Pordage kept in a red-and-black japanned box, like a family lump-sugar box, some document or other, which some Sambo chief or other had got drunk and spilled some ink over (as well as I could understand the matter), and by that means had given up lawful possession of the island. Through having hold of this box, Mr. Pordage got his title of commissioner. He was styled consul too, and spoke of himself as "government."

He was a stiff-jointed, high-nosed old gentleman, without an ounce of fat on him, of a very angry temper, and a very yellow complexion. Mrs. Commissioner Pordage, making allowance for difference of sex, was much the