I'm not surprised at you landsmen not being able to take it in, but the captain here, who's been sailing since he was the height of the binnacle, ought to know by this time that a cat and a priest are the worst cargo you can carry.

If a Christian priest is bad, I guess an idolatrous pagan one is fifty times worse.

I stand by the old religion, and be d--d to it!" My father and I could not help laughing at the rough sailor's very unorthodox way of proclaiming his orthodoxy.

The mate, however, was evidently in deadly earnest, and proceeded to state his case, marking off the different points upon the rough, red fingers of his left hand.
"It was at Kurrachee, directly after they come that I warned ye," he said reproachfully to the captain.

"There was three Buddhist Lascars in my watch, and what did they do when them chaps come aboard?
Why, they down on their stomachs and rubbed their noses on the deck--that's what they did.