Page:Recollections of a Rebel Reefer.pdf/223

Rh boat, and like little boys going on a holiday laughed and joked with glee until the boat grounded, and the sailors, with the exception of two boat-keepers, stepped into the water, and we mounted on their backs and rode ashore, dry shod, in great style.

It was delightful to feel the solid ground, or sand as it happened to be, under our feet once more, and we began at once to run and skylark up and down the beach. At the foot of the cliffs, some forty yards from the water, there was a growth of dwarf bushes. Suddenly—I never did know how it happened—we were separated and surrounded by hundreds of Moors armed with spears and old-fashioned guns of extraordinary length whose barrels were banded with silver at intervals of a foot or two apart. The Moors were shaking their guns and brandishing their spears while yelling like fiends, and all the time a seemingly endless stream of the black demons poured out from the bushes. I tried to see what had become of my companions, but could only discern a surging, struggling mass of Moors in every direction. One gigantic fellow seized me from behind and whirled me around until I faced the sea, and while others struck me with their hands, my particular giant preferred to use his feet, and he kicked me until I was almost up to my neck in the water. From my sensations I should judge that the sole of that Moor's foot without further roughening would have served very well for a blacksmith's rasp. Our unarmed boat-keepers gamely waited for us, and when I climbed into the boat I found my companions, who had been there safe—but very wet, and looking very foolish.

When we returned to the Georgia we were disposed to treat our experiences at the hands of the Moors as a good joke, but our young captain could not be induced to regard the matter in that light. In fact he was very indignant and ordered the drummer to beat to quarters without giving us time to take off our dripping clothes. The guns were cast