: A Pirate of the Caribbees by Collingwood Harry De Lacy Charles J Illustrator - Sea stories; Pirates Juvenile fiction; Adventure and adventurers Juvenile fiction Pirates Buccaneers Corsairs etc.

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Illustrator: C.J. de Lacy

A Pirate of the Caribbees

Makes a very good audiobook. NH.

BY HARRY COLLINGWOOD

A FRIGATE FIGHT IN MID-ATLANTIC.

"Eight bells, there, sleepers; d'ye hear the news?--Rouse and bitt, my hearties! Show a leg! Eight bells, Courtenay! and Keene says he will be much obliged if you will relieve him as soon as possible!"

"All right, young 'un; there's no occasion to make all that hideous row! Just see if you can make yourself useful by finding Black Peter, will you, and telling him to brew some coffee."

The lad was turning away to do my bidding when a pattering of naked feet became audible as their owner approached, while a husky voice ejaculated--

"Who's dat axin' for Brack Petah? Was it you, Mistah Courtenay?" And at the same instant the shining, good-natured, grinning visage of a gigantic negro appeared in the narrow doorway, through which the fellow instantly passed into the berth, bearing a big pot of steaming hot coffee.

"Bravo, Courtenay, well spoken!" shouted young Lindsay, the lad who had so ruthlessly interrupted my slumbers, "how well you express yourself; you ought to be in Parliament, man! Give it him again; bring him to his bearings. The impudence of the fellow is getting to be past endurance! Now then, you black swab, where's the sugar? Do you suppose we can drink that stuff without sugar?"

After a search of some duration the sugar was eventually found in a locker, in loving contiguity to an open box of blacking, some boot brushes, a box of candles, a few fragments of brown windsor,--one of which had somehow found its way into the bowl,--and a few other fragrant trifles. In my haste to get on deck, and betrayed by the feeble light of the purser's dip, which just sufficed to render the darkness visible, I managed to convey this stray morsel of soap into my coffee along with the sugar wherewith I intended to sweeten it, and only discovered what I had done barely in time to avoid gulping down the soap along with the scalding liquid into which I had plunged it. A midshipman, however, soon loses all sense of squeamishness, so I contented myself with muttering a sea blessing upon the head of the unknown individual who had deposited this "matter in the wrong place," and dashed up the hatchway to relieve the impatient Keene.

I shivered and instinctively buttoned my jacket closely about me as I stepped out on deck, for, mild and bland as the temperature actually was, it felt raw and chill after the close, stifling atmosphere of the midshipman's berth. It was very dark, for it was only just past the date of the new moon, and the thin silver sickle--which was all that the coy orb then showed of herself--had set some hours before; moreover, there was a thin veil of mist or sea fog hanging upon the surface of the water, through which only a few of the brighter stars could be faintly distinguished near the zenith. There was no wind--it had fallen calm the night before about sunset, and we were in the Horse latitudes--and the frigate was rolling uneasily upon a short, steep swell that had come creeping up out from the north-east during the middle watch, the precursor, as we hoped, of the north-east trades--for we were in the very heart of the North Atlantic, and bound to the West Indies. I duly received the anathemas of my shipmate Keene at my tardy appearance on deck, hurled a properly spirited retort after him down the hatchway, and then made my way up the poop ladder to tramp out my watch on the lee side of the deck--if there can be such a thing as a lee side when there is no wind.

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