e men to do anything
I pleased, and if they disobeyed me have them tried for mutiny, while I
had the right to attack and capture any native vessels I suspected of
having slaves on board--so, soon after noon, when I piped all hands to
dinner, I made them a little speech after the grub had been stowed away
comfortably, pointing out that their circumstances were considerably
better than they themselves appeared to think. In course, I said, our
shipmates in the _Dolphin_ had a bit the advantage of us in starting off
on another chase, with perhaps the chance of a second scrimmage at the
end of it, the same as we had all had together on the previous evening;
but then, I says, what we were doing was equally for the good of the
service; and, besides, as soon as the steamer had overhauled the slaver
she was after she would have to go back to that beastly Zanzibar in the
thick of fever time, remaining there probably for weeks, until she got
rid of the slaves from the captured dhows, while, on the contrary, we
would be down here cruising about on the free open sea and enjoying
ourselves!

"We lost nothing by remaining there, I said. If our old ship took the
slaver she was now chasing, why, we would share in the prize-money just
the same as if we'd been on board her, without running the risk of any
hard knocks or having some Arab's dagger cutting daylight into us; and
if she didn't succeed in hunting down the dhow, which was more than
likely, considering the long start the latter had got, why, then we
would be well out of a wild-goose chase.

"In addition to such arguments," continued Ben, who sometimes spoke with
a purity of diction that is much more common amongst seamen of the navy
of to-day than it was in "the good old days" of our ancestors before
education was much in vogue, "I hinted that nobody could say we might
not pick up a slave-dhow down there on our own hook quite as good as the
other one we could not go after; and if not, well, at all events we
would have an easier time of it than if we had been kept on board the
ship! There, as they knew, the skipper took jolly good care to serve us
out full purser's allowance of drill if there was nothing else stirring;
for it was beating to quarters, or small-arm exercise, or manning the
big guns, and playing all such fancy tricks with us when he had no
better work to keep us employed with between watches. I can tell you, I
never saw such a hand as Cap'en Wilson for that. He