The Pirate City, page 49 by Robert Michael Ballantyne
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ing the following day, Rais Ali set out on his mission, accompanied by Mr Flaggan.
The Irishman soon discovered that the Moor was a conceited coxcomb and a barefaced boaster, and ere long began to suspect that he was an arrant coward. He was, however, good-humoured and chatty, and Ted, being in these respects like-minded, rather took a fancy to him, and slily encouraged his weakness.
"Ye must have seed a power o' sarvice in the navy, now," he said, with an air of interest; "how came you to git into it?"
"Ha! that wos cos o' me bein' sitch a strong, good-lookin' feller," replied Ali, with an air of self-satisfaction.
"Just so," said Flaggan; "but it's not common to hear of Moors bein' taken aboard our men o' war, d'ee see. It's that as puzzles me."
"Oh, that's easy to 'splain," returned Ali. "The fac' is, I'd bin for sev'l year aboord a Maltese trader 'tween Meddrainean an' Liverp'l, and got so like a English tar you coodn't tell the one fro' the oder. Spok English, too, like natif."
"Ha!" exclaimed Ted, nodding his head gravely--"well?"
"Well, one night w'en we was all sleeperin' in port, in a 'ouse on shore, the press-gang comes round an' nabs the whole of us. We fight like lions. I knock seven men down, one before the tother, 'cause of bein' very strong, an' had learn to spar a littil. You know how to spar?"
"Well," returned Ted, looking with a smile at his huge hands, "I can't go for to say as I know much about the science of it, d'ee see; but I can use my fists after a fashion."
"Good," continued the Moor. "Well, then, we fights till all our eyes is black, an' all our noses is red, an' some of our teeths is out, but the sailirs wos too many for us. We wos 'bleeged to gif in, for wot kin courage do agin numbers? so we wos took aboord a friggit and 'zamined."
"An' what?" asked the seaman.
"'Zamined. Overhauled," replied the Moor.
"Oh! examined, I see. Well?"
"Well, I feels sure of git hoff, bein' a Algerine Moor, so w'en