aloft here, and see your betters! I say, top-mates, he ain't any
Emperor at all--I'm the rightful Emperor. Yes, by the Commodore's
boots! they stole me out of my cradle here in the palace of Rio, and
put that green-horn in my place. Ay, you timber-head, you, I'm Don
Pedro II., and by good rights you ought to be a main-top-man here, with
your fist in a tar-bucket! Look you, I say, that crown of yours ought
to be on my head; or, if you don't believe _that_, just heave it into
the ring once, and see who's the best man."

"What's this hurra's nest here aloft?" cried Jack Chase, coming up the
t'-gallant rigging from the top-sail yard. "Can't you behave yourself,
royal-yard-men, when an Emperor's on board?"

"It's this here Jonathan," answered Ringbolt; "he's been blackguarding
the young nob in the green coat, there. He says Don Pedro stole his
hat."

"How?"

"Crown, he means, noble Jack," said a top-man.

"Jonathan don't call himself an Emperor, does he?" asked Jack.

"Yes," cried Jonathan; "that greenhorn, standing there by the
Commodore, is sailing under false colours; he's an impostor, I say; he
wears my crown."

"Ha! ha!" laughed Jack, now seeing into the joke, and willing to humour
it; "though I'm born a Briton, boys, yet, by the mast! these Don Pedros
are all Perkin Warbecks. But I say, Jonathan, my lad, don't pipe your
eye now about the loss of your crown; for, look you, we all wear
crowns, from our cradles to our graves, and though in _double-darbies_
in the _brig_, the Commodore himself can't unking us."

"A riddle, noble Jack."

"Not a bit; every man who has a sole to his foot has a crown to his
head. Here's mine;" and so saying, Jack, removing his tarpaulin,
exhibited a bald spot, just about the bigness of a crown-piece, on the
summit of his curly and classical head.

CHAPTER LVII.

THE EMPEROR REVIEWS THE PEOPLE AT QUARTERS.

I Beg their Royal Highnesses' pardons all round, but I had almost
forgotten to chronicle the fact, that with the Emperor came several
other royal Princes--kings for aught we knew--since it was just after
the celebration of the nuptials of a younger sister of the Brazilian
monarch to some European royalty. Indeed, the Emperor and his suite
formed a sort of bridal party, only the bride herself was absent.

The first reception over, the smoke of the cannonading salute having
cleared away, and the martial outburst of the brass band having also
rolled off to leeward, th