ve gone hadn't fallen ill just in the
nick of time, he would have had to sail without her. I was smuggled on
board instead of a monkey shipped by the crew, which fell overboard and
was drowned. It was some weeks before the captain found out that I
wasn't the monkey he had given the men leave to take. When the first
lieutenant at length reported to him that I was a human being without a
tail, he was very angry, and father was likely to have got into trouble.
Still as he had done nothing against the articles of war, which don't
make mention of taking babies to sea, he couldn't be flogged with his
own cat. The captain then swore that he would put mother and me ashore
at the first port we touched at; but the men, among whom I had many
friends, begged hard that we might be allowed to remain, and when he saw
me scuttling about the rigging in a hairy coat and a long tail, laughing
heartily, he relented, and as he got a hint that the men would become
very discontented if he carried his threat into execution, father was
told that he would say nothing more about the matter. Soon afterwards
the captain fell ill, and mother nursed him in a way no man could have
done, so that he had reason to be thankful that he had allowed mother
and me to remain on board. The `Victorious' became one of the best
disciplined and happiest ships in the service, all because she had a
real live plaything on board. She fought several bloody actions.
During one of them, when we were tackling a French eighty-gun ship, I
got away from mother, who was with the other women in the cockpit
attending to the wounded, and slipped up on deck, where before long I
found father. `Here I am,' I said, `come to see the fun. When are you
going to finish off the mounseers?' The round shot were flying quickly
across the decks, and bullets were rattling on board like hail, for
though the French were getting the worst of it, they were, as they
always do, dying game. `Get below, boy, get below!' shouted father,
`what business have you here?' As I didn't go, he seized me by the arm,
and dragged me to the hatchway, in spite of my struggles and cries. `I
want to see the fight. I want to see the mounseers licked,' I cried
out. `Let me go, father; let me go!' Just then there was a shout from
the upper deck, `The enemy has struck--the enemy has struck!' Father
let me go, and up I ran and cheered, and waved my hat among the men with
as hearty good will as any of them.