Page:A Mainsail Haul - Masefield - 1913.djvu/134

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A MAINSAIL HAUL

was vanity; so they "weigh'd from there," and wandered as far as Australia, and then stood west for Sumatra. Presently they reached the Nicobar Islands, where Dampier and two others went ashore, having had enough of such shipmates. The Cygnet's men made some demur at their landing; but at last agreed to let them go; so that on "a fine clear Moon-light Night," as the newly landed men were walking on the sands, they "saw her under Sail," going out upon some further madness. They watched her go, and thanked their stars that they were quit of her.

"This mad fickle Crew were upon new Projects again." They were going to Persia, no less; but they never got there. They had to put in to the Coromandel coast for water, and here "the main Body were for going into the Mogul's Service." "It was what these men had long been thinking and talking of as a fine Thing," so now they put it into practice. They throve mightily in the Mogul's service; but they could not remain in it for very long. Most of them crept back to the coast, to ship themselves elsewhere, and some "went up and down Plundering the Villages," till the Mogul's