And lasted many hours before it was done.
Great numbers there was wounded, a many too was slain,
While the blood from off the decks did change the watery main.
Three hours and twenty minutes we held this dreadful fray,
We lashed her fast unto us, she could not get away;
Many times they tried to board us, but we drove them back so fast ?
Although they were so numerous, we made them yield at last.
Then down she hauled her colours, no longer could she fight;
Our British tars they gave three cheers all at this noble sight.
We took possession of her without any more delay,
And sent her into Plymouth Sound then, my boys, straightway.
Great store of artillery, ammunition too likewise,
One thousand barrels of flour to our tars become a prize.
She was bound out to Martinico, the truth I do declare,
But in the night we met her and stopped her career.'
Mowett came back during the last lines, and seeing his look of fairly well disguised disappointment Jack said to Mr. Allen, 'My first lieutenant's poems are equally appreciated, sir, but they are in the modern taste, which perhaps you may dislike.'
'No, sir, not at all, ha, ha, ha,' said Allen, now strikingly red in the face and very apt to laugh. 'I like it of all things.'
'Then perhaps you would give us the piece about the dying dolphin, Mr Mowett,' said Jack.
'Well, sir, if you insist,' said Mowett eagerly; and having explained that this was part of a poem about people sailing in the Archipelago he began in a hollow boom
'The sailors now, to give the ship relief,
Reduce the topsails by a single reef;
Each lofty yard with slackened cordage reels,
Rattle the creaking blocks and ringing wheels,
Down the tall masts the topsails sink amain,
And soon reduced, assume their post again.
And now, approaching near the lofty stern
A shoal of sportive dolphins they discern.
From burnished scales they beamed refulgent rays,
Till all the glowing ocean seemed to blaze.
Soon to the sport of death the crew repair,
Dart the long lance, or spread the baited snare.
One in redoubling mazes wheels along,
And glides, unhappy! near the triple prong...'
Stephen's mind wandered back to Laura Fielding and his perhaps untimely, unnecessary, foolish, unprofitable, sanctimonious chastity; and he was brought back to the present only by the applause that greeted the end of Mowett's recitation. Above the general noise rose Mr. Allen's strong sea-going voice now free from the genteel restraint of some decanters back: he said that although the Dromedary could not return the compliment in kind, having no gentlemen of equal talent aboard, she could at least reply with a song, good will supplying what it might lack in harmony. 'Ladies of Spain, William,' he said to his mate, beat three times on the table, and together they sang
'Farewell and adieu to you fine Spanish ladies,
Farewell and adieu all you ladies of Spain,
For we've received orders to sail for old England
And perhaps we shall never more see you again.'
Almost all the hands knew the song well, and they joined in the chorus with splendid conviction:
'We'll rant and we'll roar like true British sailors,
We'll range and we'll roam over all the salt seas,
Until we strike soundings in the Channel of old England-
From Ushant to Scilly 'tis thirty-five leagues.'
Then the captain and his mate again:
