cing round me with terrible cries and just going
to make an end of me, for they were pulling and hauling away at me and
shaking me to pieces!

And, strange to say, my first waking impression appeared to confirm the
story of my dream; for there really was an awful noise going on all
round and a yellow tawny face was bending over me looking into mine, all
the yellower from the bright sunlight that streamed through the open
door of the cabin fall upon it, while the owner of the face was shaking
me and calling out close to my ear in a strange dialect, "Hi, lilly
pijjin, rousee and bittee!"

CHAPTER SIX.

THE STARLING.

Rubbing my eyes and then opening them to the full, wide awake at last, I
at once recollected where I was, and who was speaking to me as he shook
me.

It was Ching Wang, the Chinese cook, smiling all over his round yellow
face, and holding out a tin pannikin with something steaming in it, that
sent forth a fragrant smell which made my mouth water.

"Hi me wakee can do," he said in his broken pigeon English, although
from having been several voyages he spoke more intelligibly than the
majority of his countrymen, "Mass' Looney me axee lookee after lilly
pijjin, and so me fetchee piecee coffee number one chop. You wanchee--
hey?"

"Thank you," I cried gratefully, drinking the nice hot coffee, which
seemed delicious though there was no milk in it. Then, forgetting I was
in the top bunk, I sprang off the mattress on which I had been lying,
falling further than I thought, it being quite six feet to the deck
below; and, knocking down the good-natured Chinaman, with whom I tumbled
over amongst the things scattered about the floor and landed finally
outside the door of the deck-house in a heap, rolled up with him in the
blanket I had clutched as I fell!

Fortunately, however, neither of us was injured by this little
scrimmage, which somehow or other seemed to smooth over the awkwardness
of our making acquaintance, both of us grinning over the affair as a
piece of good fun.

"Chin-chin, lilly pijjin," said my new friend, as he picked himself up
from the deck and made his way back to his galley with the empty
pannikin, whose contents I was glad to have swallowed before jumping out
of the bunk, or else it would have been spilt in another fashion. "When
you wanchee chow-chow you comee Ching Wang and he givee you first chop."

"Thank you," I replied again, not knowing then what he meant by his term
"cho