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Now it is no part of my story to relate all that happened to me during
the year or two that followed. Not that it was without adventure or
peril, or that it would not bear the repetition. On the contrary, if I
only knew how to write a book (which none of those who read what I have
written so far would be cruel enough to impute to me), I could fill a
volume with adventures which not many sea-dogs could show a match to.

But somehow those years, save in a few particulars, never seemed to rank
as part of my life. Just as when you come to the old cabin at Fanad,
and want to reach Kilgorman, you find a mile or two of water in your
way, which, though it has to be traversed, belongs neither to one side
nor to the other, so I reckon those years as years by themselves, making
only a break in the coast-line of my story.

The _Diana_, spent most of her time in foreign waters, whither no news
of any of those I desired to hear of reached me. For a year we cruised
in the West Indies, fighting Frenchmen and yellow fever and pirates.
Then a summons came to take a convoy into Indian waters, where we were
engaged in protecting English merchantmen from the depredations of
French and Spanish privateers. Then, just as the welcome order to
return to Europe arrived, an engagement in the Persian Gulf disabled us,
and compelled us to put into the nearest port for repairs. And before
we were fit to sail again, a sudden demand for reinforcements in the
West Indies called us back there, where we fought the Frenchmen every
other day.

That was the one part of the business I liked best. Every broadside we
poured into the enemy helped to wipe out my scores against the Republic
One and Indivisible. I am told I distinguished myself more than once in
the course of the cruise, though I can take little credit to myself for
disinterested gallantry if I did. I had only to call to mind the vision
of my dear little mistress as I saw her last, pale and scared in the
squalid attic in the Quai Necker, with her bright eyes turned on mine,
with her hand on my arm, and her voice, "Come back early, Barry," to
make a demon of me, as with my cutlass in my teeth I sprang on to the
enemy's rigging, and dashed for his hatchways.

I cared so little for my life in those days that I was ready for any
reckless or desperate adventure, and was pretty sure to be selected as
one of the party when any specially critic