[9] Bethnal Green, now in the limits of London. Bednal Green? Aye, Green’s the name and green’s the word. Green! Oh, for the leaves, the grass, the young buds of spring; just one handful of those was worth more than all of those yellow sands, glaring waters and banana skies! Bednal Green! The very word--the name--was like cold water on a gritted tongue! Bednal Green! Aye, had I the choice between the eating room of the “White Duck” Tavern and the palace of the Grand Mogul across the water in India, there would be no bargaining. Did I know Bednal Green! “Aye,” said I, “very well.” “You have ale at him White Duck?” Ale at the White Duck--the very place that was running in my mind! I knew then that I was dreaming; that I was out of my head and that I would surely soon die. Verily I had drunk ale in the White Duck; drunk it often of winter mornings when Mistress Brown, in a clean apron, kept the coal fire bright in the grate, and the carters from the country, leaving their wains outside, came stamping in, blowing upon their finger tips and shouting the gossip of the frozen roads. I lost myself in a sort of swoon. When I came back to my senses I was lying in the old hut of a fisherman, and the big black fellow was fanning my head with a bundle of broad leaves. He must have carried me in from the beach; an easy job, for I was all skin and bones, and he was a giant. When he saw me open my eyes he bade me fear nothing, that I was in his house and the people of the place would do me no harm. He said that I might call him Jim. Jim nursed me like I was a baby; he gave me food and drink; he tried to keep me cool at noon and warm at night, and all without pay, for not one penny piece of my few remaining coins would he take. His was just a heart of good will. And in between whiles he told me the strange story of his life. He had gone to England from Africa on a British ship a long time before and had made his dwelling in London, particularly in this suburb of Bednal Green, where he turned his hand to one thing and another wherever there was need of a man of strength. At length, being of the mind to go to sea again, he had left England in the ship _Rochester_--I knew her very well--bound for the Indies. But off Guinea they fell into a sea fight with a Frenchman, and were very hardly pressed, their enemy having more guns and men than they. Resolving to make a struggle to the finish, the captain of the _Rochester_--probably to keep his men from fleeing--ordered Jim to cut the longboat adrift from the stern of the ship. Jim went beyond his orders, for after cutting the rope he stayed in the boat and made off with it under cover of the gun smoke. He had not got a mile away when with a great noise the _Rochester_ blew up, her powder having exploded by accident. He made his way to Guinea and from there, on one ship and another, he had slowly worked his way to this place of Joanna, where he had a mind to settle himself among the native people.