that we cannot afford
to waste time in mere formalities just now; and I will take the
responsibility of sending you to sea again at once. You will be a bit
crowded aboard the little hooker, I'm afraid, but that can't be helped;
and if all goes well it ought not to be for long. Now, go and find
Carline, talk over the matter with him, and then come up to the Pen to
dinner to-night--seven o'clock, sharp--and report to me what you have
arranged."

I took the hint, and went, very well pleased, on the whole, with the
result of my interview. For I must confess that I had gone to that
interview not altogether without trepidation; it was quite possible--I
had told myself--that the Admiral might find fault with the manner in
which I had engaged the pirate schooner; he might have picked holes in
my tactics, or something of that sort; he might even have considered
that the _Wasp_ might have been saved, after the fight, had we acted
otherwise than we did; but, to my great relief, there was not a word of
blame from him; on the contrary, he had murmured a word or two of
approval here and there while I had been telling my tale, and was now
about to prove his undiminished confidence in me by entrusting me with
the command of another expedition against the same formidable foe. I
could not possibly have hoped for a more favourable reception.

I soon found the Master-Attendant, and inexorably button-holed him while
I explained what I wanted done, although the poor man was frightfully
busy just then, several ships being in harbour, refitting after having
been in action with the enemy. But, let him protest as he might, I
would not release him until he had agreed to do everything that I
required; the result being that when the dockyard men knocked off work
to go to dinner that day, the felucca was already alongside the wharf,
and more than half her ballast out of her; while, when the dockyard bell
rang at six o'clock that night, signalling the cessation of work for the
day, her hold had been swept clean, a quantity of dunnage laid in it,
and four 68-pounders stowed on the top thereof, well packed up all round
to prevent them from shifting when the craft was at sea. But although I
remained on the spot until the last moment, supervising matters in order
that everything might be done to my satisfaction, I still managed to
reach the Pen by seven o'clock--a smart sailing boat up to Kingston, and
a ketureen from thence out to the Pen being m