BOOK II.
CHAPTER I _Once More in John Saunders's Snuggery._ Need I say that it was a great occasion when I was once more back safe in John Saunders's snuggery, telling my story to my two friends, comfortably enfolded in a cloud of tobacco smoke, John with his old port at his elbow, and Charlie Webster and I flanked by our whiskies and soda, all just as if I had never stirred from my easy chair, instead of having spent an exciting month or so among sharks, dead men, blood-lapping ghosts, card-playing skeletons and such like?
My friends listened to my yarn in characteristic fashion, John Saunders's eyes more like mice peeping out of a cupboard than ever, and Charlie Webster's huge bulk poised almost threateningly, as it were, with the keenness of his attention.

His deep-set kind brown eyes glowed like a boy's as I went on, but by their dangerous kindling at certain points of the story, those dealing with our pock-marked friend, Henry P.Tobias, Jr., I soon realised where, for him, the chief interest of the story lay.
"The -- -- rebel!" he roared out once or twice, using an adjective peculiarly English.
When I come to think of it, perhaps there is no one in His Britannic Majesty's dominions so wholeheartedly English as Charlie Webster.

He is an Englishman of a larger mould than we are accustomed to to-day.

He seems rather to belong to a former more rugged era--an Englishman say of Elizabeth's or Nelson's day; big, rough, and simple, honest to the core, slow to anger, but terrible when roused--a true heart of oak, a man with massive, slow-moving, but immensely efficient, "governing" brain.

A born commander, utterly without fear, yet always cool-headed and never rash.
If there are more Englishmen like him, I don't think you will find them in London or anywhere in the British Isles.