Griffith.
"Drill," said Borroughcliffe, aloud, "advance, and receive your orders."
The cockswain turned quickly at this sudden mandate, and, for the first
time, perceived that he had been followed into the gallery by the
orderly and two files of the recruits, armed. "Take this man to the
guard-room, and feed him, and see that he dies not of thirst."
There was nothing alarming in this order; and Tom was following the
soldiers, in obedience to a gesture from their captain, when their steps
were arrested in the gallery, by the cry of "Halt!"
"On recollection, Drill," said Borroughcliffe, in a tone from which all
dictatorial sounds were banished, "show the gentleman into my own room,
and see him properly supplied."
The orderly gave such an intimation of his comprehending the meaning of
his officer, as the latter was accustomed to receive, when
Borroughcliffe returned to his bottle, and the cockswain followed his
guide, with an alacrity and good will that were not a little increased
by the repeated mention of the cheer that awaited him.
Luckily for the impatience of Tom, the quarters of the captain were at
hand, and the promised entertainment by no means slow in making its
appearance. The former was an apartment that opened from a lesser
gallery, which communicated with the principal passage already
mentioned; and the latter was a bountiful but ungarnished supply of that
staple of the British Isles, called roast beef; of which the kitchen of
Colonel Howard was never without a due and loyal provision,--The
sergeant, who certainly understood one of the signs of his captain to
imply an attack on the citadel of the cockswain's brain, mingled, with
his own hands, a potation that he styled a rummer of grog, and which he
thought would have felled the animal itself that Tom was so diligently
masticating, had it been alive and in its vigor.
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