"With the instruments, that is. I'd dropped the bandmaster on the way.
Look here," he went on sharply, "the beginning is funny enough, but I'm
telling you no lies. We'll suppose there was a ship, a British
man-of-war--name not necessary just now."

"I think I understand," I nodded.

"Oh no, you don't," said he. "I'm not a deserter--at least not
exactly--or I shouldn't be telling this to you. Well, we'll suppose
this ship bound from Labuan to Hong-Kong with orders to keep along the
north side of Borneo, to start with, and do a bit of exploring by the
way. This would be in 'forty-nine, when the British Government had just
taken over Labuan. _Very_ good. Next we'll suppose the captain puts in
at Kudat, in Marudu Bay, to pay a polite call on the Rajah there or some
understrapper of the Sultan's, and takes his ship's band ashore by way
of compliment, and that the band gets too drunk to play 'Annie Laurie.'"
He chuckled again. "I never saw such a band as we were, down by the
water's edge; and O'Hara, the bandmaster, took on and played the fool to
such a tune, while we waited for the boat to take us aboard, that for
the very love I bore him I had to knock him down and sit on him in a
quiet corner.

"While I sat keeping guard on him I must have dropped asleep myself; for
the next I remember was waking up to find the beach deserted and the
boat gone. This put me in a sweat, of course; but after groping some
while about the foreshore (which was as dark as the inside of your hat),
I tripped over a rope and so found a native boat. O'Hara wouldn't wake,
so I just lifted him on board like a sack, tossed in his cornet and my
bombardon, tumbled in on top of them, and started to row for dear life
towards the ship's light in the offing.