"Rocks and reefs all around you, with the sea breaking over them!" exclaimed Henry.
"Not so werry good," responded the Old Sailor. "The _Queen o' Spades_ had run plumb straight into a small harbor, sort o' horseshoe shaped, with a long narrer p'int runnin' out on each side. There she were stuck fast in the sand, an' a werry consid'able number o' half-nakid savidges standin' on the shore a-grinnin' an' wavin' spears. Putty soon a big canoe started out from the shore an' come towards the ship. In the starn o' her there were a werry tall savidge wearin' a werry big red coat with one epaulet. Cap'n Philander Montgomery Boggs sez he to me, sez he: 'That are the chief, an' he are a-wearin' the coat o' some English ossifer wot's bin wracked here.' An' that bein' werry plain fur to see, I didn't say nothin' at all. Waal, w'en the canoe got close 'nuff we could see that them was the werry thinnest an' starvedest lookin' lot o' savidges ever knowed. W'y, their ribs stuck out so their sides looked like old-fashioned washboards, an' their faces looked like overgrowed English walnuts. They pulled up the canoe a few yards off an' made signs that they was hungry, an' they looked it. So the Cap'n, seein' that we was there thort as how we'd better make friends with 'em, an' he inwited the King--the feller in the red coat--to come aboard an' git some grub. The steward sot out a fine lunch in the first-cabin saloon, an' the Cap'n he showed the King aroun' while it were a-gettin' ready. We soon found out as how that there King could talk consid'able English, but he wouldn't tell where he larned it. Waal, I wish you could 'a' seed that there King eat. The steward put out a lunch for six, an' blow me fur pickles ef the bloomin' one-epauletted cannibal didn't eat it all, an' holler fur more.
"'Look a-here, Kingsy,' sez the Cap'n, 'how long is it sence you filled your hold?'
"'Werry poor island dis,' sez the King--'werry poor. Eat nuts an' wild berries. Poor savidge werry hungry.'
"'Steward,' sez the Cap'n, 'fill him up solid. Give him some o' those doughnuts ye make fur the babbus in Al Kamakh.'
"Waal, byme-by the King got 'nuff, an' went ashore. He hadn't bin there an hour afore we seed a hull regiment o' savidges to work astarn o' the ship. They was drivin' logs down into the water, an' droppin' big rocks in an' shovellin' sand.