All were
nameless when I saw them for the first time, and strange; but in the days
that followed I learned them rope and spar.
Vessels from almost every western nation were there, too--bluff-bowed Dutch
craft with square-headed crews, brigantines from the Levant, and ships from
Spain, England, and America.
The captains of three other American ships in port came aboard to inquire
about the state of the seas between the Si-Kiang and the Cape of Good Hope
and shook their heads gravely at what we told them. One, an old friend of
Captain Whidden, said that he knew my own father. "It's shameful that such
things should be--simply shameful," he declared, when he had heard the
story of our fight with the Arab ship. "What with Arabs and Malays on the
high seas, Ladronesers in port--ay, and British men-of-war everywhere!"
He went briskly over the side, settled himself in the stern-sheets of his
boat, and gave us on the quarter-deck a wave of his hand; then his men
rowed him smartly away down-stream.
"Ay, it is shameful," Roger repeated. He soberly watched the other
disappear among the shipping, then he turned to Mr. Cledd. "I shall go
ashore for the day," he said. "I have business that will take considerable
time, and I think that Mr.
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