for some time like a veritable lump of salt-Peter! When the storm had
abated he came to himself, and of course found himself in no agreeable
company!

Sticking his cocked-hat on his head, and grasping his dirk in his hand,
he tottered to a rock, when, seating himself, he philosophically rocked
to and fro. "Oh! vy vos I a midshipman," cried he, "to be wrecked on
this desolate island? I vish I vos at home at Bloomsbury! Oh! that I
had but to turn and embrace my kind, good, benevolent, and much respected
grandmother." As he uttered this pathetic plaint, he heard a chatter--of
which, at first considering that it proceeded from his own teeth, he took
no notice--but the sounds being repeated, he turned his head, and beheld
a huge baboon with a dog-face and flowing hair, grinning with admiration
at his cocked hat.

One look was sufficient! he leaped from his seat, and rushed wildly
forward, threading a wood in his way, and turning in and out--in and out
--with the sharpness and facility of a needle in the heel of a worsted
stocking--he never stayed his flight, 'till he fell plump into the centre
of a group of Indians, who received him with a yell!--loud enough to
split the drums of a whole drawing-room full of ears polite.

He would have fallen headlong with fear and exhaustion upon the turf, had
not a gentle female caught the slender youth in her arms, and embraced
him with all the energetic affection of a boa-constrictor.

Peter trembled like a little inoffensive mouse in the claws of a tabby!

At the same time one of the Indians stepped forward, brandishing his
scalping knife.