Do I loom so large from your quarter-deck that I lift like a ship o' the Line? He has learned to run from a shotted gun and harry such craft as mine. There is never a Law on the Cocos Keys to hold a white man in, But we do not steal the niggers' meal, for that is a nigger's sin. Must he have his Law as a quid to chaw, or laid in brass on his wheel? Does he steal with tears when he buccaneers? 'Fore Gad, then, why does he steal?" The skipper bit on a deep-sea word, and the word it was not sweet, For he could see the Captains Three had signalled to the Fleet. But three and two, in white and blue, the whimpering flags began: "We have heard a tale of a-foreign sail, but he is a merchantman." The skipper peered beneath his palm and swore by the Great Horn Spoon: "'Fore Gad, the Chaplain of the Fleet would bless my picaroon!" By two and three the flags blew free to lash the laughing air : : "We have sold our spars to the merchantman—we know that his price is fair." The skipper winked his Western eye, and swore by a China storm: "They ha' rigged him a Joseph's jury-coat to keep his honour warm." The halliards twanged against the tops, the bunting bellied broad, The skipper spat in the empty hold and mourned for a wasted cord. Masthead-masthead, the signal sped by the line o' the British craft; The skipper called to his Lascar crew, and put her about and laughed : "It's mainsail haul, my bully boys all-we'll out to the seas again Ere they set us to paint their pirate saint, or scrub at his grapnel-chain. It's fore-sheet free, with her head to the sea, and the swing of the unbought brine We'll make no sport in an English court till we come as a ship o' the Line: Till we come as a ship o' the Line, my lads, of thirty foot in the sheer, Lifting again from the outer main with news of a Flying his pluck at our mizzen-truck for weft of Heaving his head for our dipsey-lead in sign that we keep the sea. Then fore-sheet home as she lifts to the foam-we stand on the outward tack, We are paid in the coin of the white man's tradethe bezant is hard, ay, and black. The frigate-bird shall carry my word to the Kling and the Orang-Laut How a man may sail from a heathen coast to be robbed in a Christian port; How a man may be robbed in Christian port while Three Great Captains there Shall dip their flag to a slaver's rag-to show that his trade is fair!" THE BALLAD OF THE "CLAMPHERDOWN" It was our war-ship Clampherdown She had one bow-gun of a hundred ton, They dipped their noses deep in the sea, It was our war-ship Clampherdown, That carried the dainty Hotchkiss gun She opened fire at seven miles As ye shoot at a bobbing cork- "Captain, the bow-gun melts apace, And he answered, "Make it so." She opened fire within the mile- And the great stern-gun shot fair and true, With the heave of the ship, to the stainless blue, And the great stern-turret stuck. "Captain, the turret fills with steam, It was our war-ship Clampherdown, Swung round to take the cruiser's fire As the White Whale faces the Thresher's ire When they war by the frozen Pole. 66 Captain, the shells are falling fast, And faster still fall we; And it is not meet for English stock To bide in the heart of an eight-day clock The death they cannot see." |