CHAPTER VI.

In which the strange Conduct of Peregrine Pultuney at the End of the last Chapter is accounted for; and the Poggletons cross the Surf at Madras.

Ir will, we are sure, have been taken for granted that Peregrine Pultuney, when he "got leave to sea," and acted upon the leave he had got, did not trust himself, out of condition as he was, to the mercy of the elements and the cock-roaches, without taking with him that invaluable domestic Peer Khan, in the capacities of nurse, butler, &c. Besides this he had procured the services of a Madras man, by name Ram Sammy, who, however was discovered in a very little time to be as big a rascal as any in existence, having regaled himself, during the first week after Peregrine had gone to bed, with the contents of a six-dozen chest, consisting of some very choice old Madeira, and several bottles of liqueurs, which that young gentleman had taken with him on board, in order that he might be well provided with creature comforts,

of a good quality, should the captain's stores prove inferior to his own. As, however, a considerable. portion of these good things went to the nightly inebriation of Ram Sammy, and the remainder of them were left behind, when Peregrine went on shore, it would have been equally well, all things considered, if the precaution had never been taken; but as it was impossible that this should have been known before-hand, the forethought of our hero is worthy of the praise which we, as just historians, bestow upon it.

But to return to Peer Khan; the good Mahommedan-whose gratitude was truly perennial, tended his beloved master on board the Leander, with a patience and constancy and devotedness, in which the best Christian could not have surpassed him. He was indeed most useful; for being thoroughly acquainted with the routine of board ship life, and most watchful after his master's interests, he was enabled to procure for Peregrine the best of every thing that the ship supplied, as speedily as it could be procured by a person always on the alert, and not particularly ceremonious, where his own sahib's welfare was concerned. He could jostle too, and dispute, and assert his claims, after other fashions. than the most polite, and it may truly be said, that a more zealous myrmidon never tracked the footsteps of a hero than did Peer Khan follow those of ours. The man Friday and Corporal Trim were nothing to him.

But Peer Khan had his troubles, as do all natives in the midst of Europeans, for the said Europeans (by which name we mean Englishmen) are certainly the most uncourteous and the most ungenerous set of people in the world to strangers. Not, however, that Peer Khan was the only native of India on board the Leander, for there were some five or six others, including the Madrassey, all of indifferent character and pretensions, who, on shore, would never have been tolerated in any higher rank than that of a mussauljee (lamp-lighter), and were, for want of better employment, accompanying some gentlemen to Madras. For these men, Peer Khan entertained a most sovereign contempt, and was rarely or ever to be seen in their society; indeed he kept himself pretty well aloof from every body except his master and his master's relations, to whom he was eminently useful. The cuddy servants in vain attempted to impose duties on the sturdy Mahommedan, which he knew did not legitimately appertain to him; and he despised his fellow-countrymen who were simple enough to be imposed upon in this manner. He was not going to clean the ship's plate, and the ship's crockery, and the ship's glass, for the lazy Europeans whose business it was to perform these duties, and Peregrine Pultuney very properly supported him in resisting these aggressions on every occasion.

Peer Khan, it may easily be supposed, was therefore not much of a favourite amongst the ship's ser

vants-a worthless, exacting, insolent set of fellows as they are in most instances, and as they particularly were in the ship Leander; nor was he much more so amongst the sailors, who were indeed as disreputable a set of men as had ever gone on board ship -men picked up in the streets of Calcutta, decoyed out of the punch-houses, deserters from other ships and utterly characterless, for it happened with the Leander, as it often does happen with ships arriving at Calcutta in the middle of the unhealthy season, that half her crew died whilst the vessel was lying in the river, and the commander was obliged to procure such substitutes as he could find in the purlieus of the city of palaces. These men, rips and rascals as they were, chockful of the sailor's national prejudices, with none of the sailor's generosity to restrain them, amused themselves, throughout the few first weeks of the voyage, in playing off a number of practical jokes, of the coarsest and most annoying description, upon the poor, patient Hindoos, whenever they trusted themselves within reach of Jack's wit and the forecastle. Peer Khan, however, rarely went within reach of Jack and the forecastle, but when he did so, he was not quite so well disposed as his compatriots to submit quietly to Jack's raillery. "What for you call me black beast," he would say, "you white beast—you plenty more beast I am;" and on one occasion, when a sailor had amused himself with throwing a bucket of water over Peer Khan, as he was eating his mess

of curry in a quiet corner, the Mussulmaun turned round without uttering a word, and discharged the hot contents of his cooking-pot with an unerring aim into Jack's face, and then quietly walked aft to do some business in his master's cabin.

This of course the sailor did not forget; but when the pain of the scalding curry was a little allayed, he began to cast about in his mind as to the best mode of revenging himself upon the "cursed niggur." He was afraid to serve him out, as he could have wished, with a right good pummelling, because Peer Khan was a passenger's servant; besides, he thought that he might possibly annoy him in a more deadly way even than this, and he had heard that Mussulmauns, like Jews, had a religious aversion to the flesh of the swine-an aversion which he thought he might take advantage of, so as to work out the discomfiture of the gentleman of the hot curry. Accordingly he saved, one day, about a third part of his messing, tied the meat to a piece of yarn, and placed it in his chest until the evening, when he thought the dark would be favourable to him, as well as the time, for Peer Khan was rarely to be seen in the fore part of the ship any time before the cuddy dinner. Nor was he disappointed, for between six and seven o'clock Peer Khan was seen ascending the forecastle, and the sailor, who was on the look out, ran down into the steerage, opened his box, abstracted the pork, and then returned to the forecastle, thinking that a glo