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The flat-iron went down stream through the dark. The Governor slept on deck, and Judson took the wheel, but how he steered, and why he did not run into each bank many times, that officer does not remember. Mr. Davies did not note anything unusual, for there are two ways of taking too much, and Judson was only ward-room, not foc’s’le drunk. As the night grew colder the Governor woke up, and expressed a desire for whiskey and soda. When that came they were nearly abreast of the stranded “Guadala”, and His Excellency saluted the flag that he could not see with loyal and patriotic strains.

“They do not see. They do not hear,” he cried. “Ten thousand saints! They sleep, and I have won battles! Ha!”

He started forward to the gun, which, very naturally, was loaded, pulled the lanyard, and woke the dead night with the roar of the full charge behind a common shell. That shell mercifully just missed the stern of the “Guadala”, and burst on the bank. “Now you shall salute your Governor,” said he, as he heard feet running in all directions within the iron skin. “Why you demand so base a quarter? I am here with all my prisoners.”

In the hurly-burly and the general shriek for mercy his reassurances were not heard.

“Captain,” said a grave voice from the ship, “we have surrendered. Is it the custom of the English to fire on a helpless ship’?”

Surrendered! Holy Virgin! I go to cut off all their heads. You shall be ate by wild ants -flogged and drowned. Throw me a balcony. It is I, the Governor! You shall never surrender. Judson of my soul, ascend her insides, and send me a bed, for I am sleepy; but, oh, I will multiple time kill that captain!”

“Oh!” said the voice in the darkness, “I begin to comprehend.” And a rope-ladder was thrown, up which the Governor scrambled, with Judson at his heels.

“Now we will enjoy executions,” said the Governor on the deck. “All these Republicans shall be shot. Little Judson, if I am not drunk, why are so sloping the boards which do not support?”

The deck, as I have said, was at a very stiff cant. His Excellency sat down, slid to leeward, and was asleep again.

The captain of the “Guadala” bit his moustache furiously, and muttered in his own tongue: “This land is the father of great villains and the stepfather of honest men. You see our material, Captain. It is so everywhere with us. You have killed some of the rats, I hope?”

“Not a rat,” said Judson genially.

“That is a pity. If they were dead, our country might send us men; but our country is dead too, and I am dishonoured on a mud-bank through your English treachery.”

“Well, it seems to me that firing on a little tub of our size without a word of warning, when you know that the countries were at peace, is treachery enough in a small way.”

“If one of my guns had touched you, you would have gone to the bottom, all of you. I would have taken the risk with my Government. By that time it would have been -“

“A Republic? So you really did mean fighting on your own hook? You’re rather a dangerous officer to cut loose in a navy like yours. Well, what are you going to do now?”

“Stay here. Go away in boats. What does it matter? That drunken cat” – he pointed to the shadow in which the Governor slept -” is here. I must take him back to his hole.”

“Very good. I’ll tow you off at daylight if you get steam ready.”

“Captain, I warn you that as soon as she floats again I will fight you.”

“Humbug! You’ll have lunch with me, and then you’ll take the Governor up the river.”

The captain was silent for some time. Then he said: “Let us drink. What must be, must be; and after all we have not forgotten the Peninsula. You will admit, Captain, that it is bad to be run upon a shoal like a mud-dredger?”