"Let go twenty fathoms!"
The pilot sighed relief as the starboard anchor splashed into the
water and the cable roared after it through the hawse pipe.
"What nationality are you?" asked the commander, watching the Puncher
swing and gaging distances, but sparing one eye now for his unwelcome
but official guest.
"Me, sah?"
"Yes, you."
The pilot looked anywhere but at his questioner, and a picture passed
before the commander's eyes--a memory, perhaps, of something he had
read about at school--of Christians in Nero's day being asked what
their religion was.
"Are you afraid to tell me?" he asked, softening his voice to a kinder
tone as he remembered that God did not make all men Englishmen, and
turning just in time to cause Crothers to withdraw his right leg.
The pilot's toes were, after all, not destined to be trodden on
just then.
"No, sah, Ah'm not afraid."
"What are you, then?"
"Ah'm--"
"Well? What?"
"Ah'm English!"
"What?"
"Captain, sah, Ah'm English!"
"Oh! Are you? Um-m-m! Mr. White, give this man his ten pounds,
will you? And get his receipt for it.
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