, after which we pitched the whole of
the remaining weapons overboard.

Next morning, at daybreak, we took on board a black pilot off Portland
Point, reaching Port Royal just in time to hear eight bells struck on
board the various ships lying at anchor in the harbour.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

A PACKET OF DISTURBING LETTERS.

The first task was to send by shore-boat a brief note on board the
admiral, informing him of our capture, and requesting him to send a few
hands on board to take care of the vessel. A prompt reply, in the shape
of a somewhat dandified mid, with a dozen stout seamen to back him, was
vouchsafed to this request, the midshipman bringing with him also a
verbal message to the effect that the admiral would be glad to see us on
board to breakfast with him. This condescension, of course, merely
meant that he was curious to hear full particulars of the capture, but
we nevertheless felt much gratified at the invitation; and, detaining
the gig alongside only long enough to enable us to make ourselves
presentable, we jumped into her, and five minutes later found ourselves
on the quarter-deck of the old _Mars_.

Admiral J-- himself happened to be on deck at the moment when we stepped
in through the entering port, and the look of mingled astonishment and
anger with which he regarded us as we presented ourselves before him at
once told us that something was wrong.

"How now, young gentlemen!" he testily exclaimed; "are you the two
midshipmen who sent me this note, informing me that you had captured
yonder cock-boat of a felucca?" We respectfully intimated that we were.
"Then how comes it, sirs, that you have presumed to come on board me in
those 'longshore togs? Away with you back at once, and when next you
venture to appear in my presence, see to it that you come in a proper
uniform."

The murder was out. We were, of course, dressed in the clothes with
which Don Luis de Guzman had so generously supplied us, and we had been
for so long a time out of uniform that it had never occurred to us that
our costume would be regarded as in the slightest degree inappropriate.
We explained in as few words as possible that we were two of the
surviving officers of the _Hermione_, that we had been for some time
prisoners in La Guayra, and that we had only very recently effected our
escape therefrom; and that put the whole affair straight in a moment,
the admiral, who, peppery as was his temper, was a thoroughly kind-