"Top-robbin's" yarns, however, were treated with more tolerance. He had a lively imagination and a very impressive delivery. His themes were of the ghostly sort--of phantom ships sailing against wind and tide, and women in white gliding on board in the midst of storms. Curiously enough, Captain Semmes, who was constantly called a pirate and whose name was associated in the minds of New England people with that of Captain Kidd, had gained the reputation in the forecastle of his own ship of being a sort of preacher, the impression doubtless dating from that introductory speech of his off Terceira, in which he predicted the blessings of Providence upon the Alabama's efforts to rid the South of the Yankees. One of the forecastle songs is said to have run thus: Oh, our captain said, "When my fortune's made, I'll buy a church to preach in, And fill it full of toots and horns, And have a jolly Methodee screechin'. "And I'll pray the Lord both night and morn To weather old Yankee Doodle-- And I'll run a hinfant Sunday School With some of the Yankee's boodle." One sailor who claimed to have been an officer in the British navy had an excellent tenor voice, and delighted not only his messmates, but frequently the officers as well, with his rendering of popular songs. Even the captain used occasionally to stroll out on the bridge and listen with pleasure to the entertainment furnished with voice or violin. The following song, said to have been improvised by one of the crew, was sung on the night before the fight with the Kearsarge: We're homeward bound, we're homeward bound, We soon shall stand on English ground; But ere that English land we see, We first must lick the Kersar-gee. At the Cape of Good Hope fourteen of the Alabama's crew deserted. Captain Semmes records in his journal the fact that the Irish fiddler was one of the number, and calls this "one of our greatest losses." When the desirability of keeping the crew in a state of subordination and contentment was taken into consideration, there is no doubt that a petty officer or two could have been better spared. The engineer now reported only four days' coal in the bunkers, and Captain Semmes determined to shape his course for Martinique, in the West Indies, to which point Captain Bulloch had arranged to dispatch a fresh supply in a sailing vessel.