Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 2.djvu/236

 take all his duds with him, and bring himself to an anchor on shore, and not come afloat again till we saluted his flag.

Neither the first lieutenant or myself believed one word of this; indeed, we always acted upon the exact reverse of what he said; and it was well we did so in this instance. After we had anchored, he went ashore, and in about an hour returned, and stated that the admiral was not expected till next month; that he should, therefore, go and take up his quarters at Jemmy Cavan's, and not trouble the ship any more until the admiral arrived; he then left us, taking his trunk and all his dirty linen, dirty enough it was.

Some of the officers unfortunately believed that we were to remain, and followed the captain's example by sending their linen on shore to be washed. Skysail was firm, and so was I; the lieutenant cocked his eye, and said, "Messmate, depend on it there is something in the wind. I have sent one shirt on shore to be