fightin' for that tide.

'The first ship we foreslowed on, her breast-works was crushed in, an'
men was shorin' 'em up. She said nothing. The next was a black pinnace,
his pumps clackin' middling quick, and he said nothing. But the third,
mending shot holes, he spoke out plenty. I asked him where Mus' Drake
might be, and a shiny-suited man on the poop looked down into us, and
saw what we carried.

'"Lay alongside, you!" he says. "We'll take that all."

'"'Tis for Mus' Drake," I says, keeping away lest his size should lee
the wind out of my sails.

'"Hi! Ho! Hither! We're Lord High Admiral of England! Come alongside, or
we'll hang ye," he says.

''Twas none of my affairs who he was if he wasn't Frankie, and while he
talked so hot I slipped behind a green-painted ship with her top-sides
splintered. We was all in the middest of 'em then.

'"Hi! Hoi!" the green ship says. "Come alongside, honest man, and I'll
buy your load. I'm Fenner that fought the seven Portugals--clean out of
shot or bullets. Frankie knows me."

'"Ay, but I don't," I says, and I slacked nothing.

'He was a masterpiece. Seein' I was for goin' on, he hails a Bridport
hoy beyond us and shouts, "George! Oh, George! Wing that duck. He's
fat!" An' true as we're all here, that squatty Bridport boat rounds to
acrost our bows, intending to stop us by means o' shooting.

'My Aunt looks over our rail. "George," she says, "you finish with your
enemies afore you begin on your friends."

'Him that was laying the liddle swivel-gun at us sweeps off his hat an'
calls her Queen Bess, and asks if she was selling liquor to pore dry
sailors. My Aunt answered him quite a piece. She was a notable woman.

'Then _he_ come up--his long pennant trailing overside--his waistcloths
and netting tore all to pieces where the Spanishers had grappled, and
his sides black-smeared with their gun-blasts like candle-smoke in a
bottle. We hooked on to a lower port and hung.

'"Oh, Mus' Drake! Mus' Drake," I calls up.

'He stood on the great anchor cathead, his shirt open to the middle, and
his face shining like the sun.

'"Why, Sim!" he says. Just like that--after twenty year! "Sim," he says,
"what brings you?"

'"Pudden," I says, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. "You told me to
bring cannon-shot next time, an' I've brought 'em."

'He saw we had. He ripped out a fathom and a half o' brimstone Spanish,
and he swung down on our rail, and he kissed me before all his fine