Page:The land of enchantment (1907, Cassell).djvu/108

 see the blue smoke a-rising from it? As sure as my name’s Benjamin,’ says I, ‘that there’s Salamander Island.’ ‘Shiver my timbers!’ says the captain, quite excited, and down he went to take an observation and enter the exact bearings of the discovery in his log.’’

“But, Ben,” said Charlie, “though Salamander Island was a good name, I think it really ought to have been called Benjamin Isle.”

“Well, Master Charles,” replied the ancient mariner, with his usual modesty, “‘ maybe you're right, but that’s hardly for me to say. Salamander was the name as passed between me and the admiral. Howsomever, when he’d done, he says to me, ‘ Now, Ben, I’d like to put it to you, as between man and man, shall we steer north, south, east, or west?’ says he. ‘We don’t want this here piratical craft to give us the slip!’ ‘Admiral,’ I answers him, ‘lay your course two p’ints north of east, likewise double your look-out and keep a-moving.’ ‘Ben,’ says he, ‘it shall be done.’

“Well, we forged ahead, but though a reward was offered to the look-outs aloft, and though me and the captain kept our weather eyes open, never a sail, big or little, did we sight.

“‘What's the cut of her jib?’ says the skipper to me.

“‘A milk-white hull with a red stripe,’ says I, ‘schooner-rigged and a-flying the Union Jack.’

“Well, we cruised till about ten bells in the afternoon, when a mariner aloft hails the quarter-deck, where was me and the admiral a-walking up and down. ‘Sail ho!’ says he. ‘Where away?’ says the skipper. “Right a-head, sir!’ ‘Can you make out her rig?’ ‘She’s a foreign barque,’ says the look-out, ‘and a-sailing this way.’

“As the two vessels came nearer, the skipper ran up the British flag, and the barque she ran up the French. The Mossoos slowed a bit as they saw we wanted to speak, and we were about half a mile as it were apart.

“What ship is that?’ we signalled. ‘The Vive la France, says they. ‘We're Her Britannic Majesty’s corvette Blunderbuss, says we. “Please have you seen a schooner with a milk-white hull and a red stripe?’ ‘Why, yes,’ says the Mossoos, ‘a matter of ten knots a- starn and bound due east; you'll catch up with her if you’re smart.’ So we thanked the Frenchy and passed the compliment of dipping our flag three times, and they did the same by us, and off we went, cocksure of our game.