"Well, when my boils was gone an' the fever slung overboard, I got down to Fulta an' held on the slack there; an' when the ships come up, they sent for me, 'cos havin' sailed up an' down the river many a time, they thought as how I could do a bit o' pilotin', there not bein' enough Dutch pilots to go round. An' I ha' had some fun, too, which I wonder I can laugh arter that Black Hole and all. By thunder! 'tis a merry sight to see the Moors run. The very look of a cutlass a'most turns 'un white, and they well-nigh drops down dead if they see a sailor man. Why, t'other day at Budge Budge--they ought to call it Fudge Fudge now, seems to me--the Jack tars went ashore about nightfall to help the lobsters storm the fort in the dark. But Colonel Clive he was dog tired, an' went to his bed, sayin' as how he'd lead a boardin' party in the mornin'. That warn't exactly beans an' bacon; nary a man but would ha' took a big dose o' fever if they'd laid out on the fields all night. "Anyways, somewhere about eleven, an' pitch dark, a Jack which his name is Strahan--a Scotchman, by what they say--went off all alone by himself, to have a sort of private peep at that there fort. He was pretty well filled up wi' grog, or pr'aps he wouldn't ha' been quite so venturesome. Well, he waded up to his chin in a ditch o' mud what goes round the fort, with his pistols above his head. When he gets over, bang goes one pistol, an' he sets up a shout: 'One and all, my boys! one and all, hurray!'--a-dreamin' I s'pose as he was captain of a boardin' party an a crew o' swabs behind him. Up he goes, up the bastion; bang goes t'other pistol; then he outs with his cutlass, a-roarin' hurray with a voice like a twelve pounder; down goes three o' them Moors; another breaks Jack's cutlass with his simitar; bless you, what's he care? don't care a straw, which his name is Strahan; he've got a fist, he have, an' he dashes it in the Moor's face, collars his simitar, cuts his throat and sings out, 'Ho, mateys! this 'ere fort's mine!' "Up comes three or four of his mates what heard his voice; they swings round the cannon on the bastion an' turns it on the enemy; bang! bang! and bless your heart, the Moors cut and run, an' the fort was ourn." At the moment Desmond thought that Bulger was drawing the long bow. But meeting Captain Speke of the Kent a little later, he asked how much truth there was in the story.