So all hands had a holiday ashore, where the captain did
not disdain to join them. Only he went apart, and had other
occupation than swarming up the palms for cocoanuts.
One fancies, then, a moonless night, a crew sleeping off double
grog, generously allowed them by the captain; a boat putting off
from the _Bonny Lass_, in which were captain, mate, and one Bill
Halliwell, able seaman, a man of mighty muscle; and as freight an
object large, angular and ponderous, so that the boat lagged
heavily beneath the rowers' strokes.
Later, Bill, the simple seaman, grows presumptuous on the strength
of this excursion with his betters. It is a word and a blow with
the captain of the _Bonny Lass_, and Bill is conveniently disposed
of. Dead, as well as living, he serves the purpose of the captain,
but of that later.
Away sailed the _Bonny Lass_, sailing once for all out of the
story. As for Captain Sampson, there is a long gap in his history,
hazily filled by the story of his having been lieutenant to Benito
Bonito, and one of the two survivors when Bonito's black flag was
brought down by the British frigate _Espiegle_. But sober history
knows nothing of him until he reappears years later, an aged and
broken man, in a back street of Bristol. Here was living a certain
Hopperdown, who had been boatswain on the _Bonny Lass_ at the time
that she so regrettably lost her passengers overboard.
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