Chapter Fourteen
A Brave Dash for Life and Freedom
“Geo’ge, come wid me,” said Peter the Great one afternoon, with face so solemn that the heart of the young midshipman beat faster as he followed his friend.
They were in Ben-Ahmed’s garden at the time—for the middy had been returned to his owner after a night in the common prison, and a threat of much severer treatment if he should ever again venture to lay his infidel hands on one of the faithful.
Having led the middy to the familiar summer house, where most of their earnest or important confabulations were held, Peter sat down and groaned.
“What’s wrong now?” asked the middy, with anxious looks.
“Oh! Geo’ge, eberyt’ing’s wrong,” he replied, flinging himself down on a rustic seat with a reckless air and rolling his eyes horribly. “Eberyt’ing’s wrong. De world’s all wrong togidder—upside down and inside out.”
The middy might have laughed at Peter’s expression if he had not been terribly alarmed.
“Come, Peter, tell me. Is Hester safe?”
“I don’ know, Geo’ge.”
“Don’t know! Why d’you keep me in such anxiety? Speak, man, speak! What has happened?”
“How kin I speak, Geo’ge, w’en I’s a’most busted wid runnin’ out here to tell you?”
The perspiration that stood on Peter’s sable brow, and the heaving of his mighty chest, told eloquently of the pace at which he had been running.
“Dis is de way ob it, Geo’ge. I had it all fro’ de lips ob Sally herself, what saw de whole t’ing.” As the narrative which Peter the Great had to tell is rather too long to be related in his own “lingo,” we will set it down in ordinary language.
One day while Hester was, as usual, passing her father, and in the very act of dropping the customary supply of food, she observed that one of the slaves had drawn near and was watching her with keen interest. From the slave’s garb and bearing any one at all acquainted with England could have seen at a glance that he was a British seaman, though hard service and severe treatment, with partial starvation, had changed him much. He was in truth the stout sailor-like man who had spoken a few words to Foster the day he landed in Algiers, and who had contemptuously asserted his utter ignorance of gardening.
The slaves, we need hardly say, were not permitted to hold intercourse with each other for fear of their combining to form plans of rebellion and escape, but it was beyond the power of their drivers to be perpetually on the alert, so that sometimes they did manage to exchange a word or two without being observed.
That afternoon it chanced that Sommers had to carry a stone to a certain part of the wall. It was too heavy for one man to lift, the sailor was therefore ordered to help him. While bearing the burden towards the wall, the following whispered conversation took place.
“I say, old man,” observed the sailor, “the little girl that gives you biscuits every day is no more a nigger than I am.”
“Right!” whispered the merchant anxiously, for he had supposed that no one had observed the daily gift; “she is my daughter.”
“I guessed as much by the cut o’ your jibs. But she’s in danger, for I noticed that one o’ the drivers looked at her suspiciously to-day, and once suspicion is roused the villains never rest. Is there no means of preventing her coming this way to-morrow?”
“None. I don’t even know where she comes from or goes to. God help her! If suspected, she is lost, for she will be sure to come to-morrow.”
“Don’t break down, old man; they’ll observe you. If she is taken are you willing to fight?”
“Yes,” answered the merchant sternly.
“I am with you, then. Your name?”
“Sommers. Yours?”
“Brown.”
A driver had been coming towards them, so that the last few words had been spoken in low whispers. A sharp cut of the whip on the shoulders of each showed that the driver had observed them talking. They received it in absolute silence and without any outward display of feeling. To that extent, at all events, they had both been “tamed.”
But the stout seaman had been for many weeks acting a part. At first, like Sommers, he had been put in heavy irons on account of his violence and ferocity; but after many weeks of childlike submission on his part, the irons were removed. Despite the vigilance of the guards, a plot had been hatched by the gang to which Brown belonged, and it was almost, though not quite, ripe for execution when the events we are describing occurred. Poor Hester’s action next day precipitated matters and caused the failure of the plot—at least to some extent.
She had gone as usual with Sally to visit the slave-gang, and had dropped her biscuits, when her anxious father said, in a low but hurried voice, “Pass quickly, and don’t come again for some time!”
Hester involuntarily stopped.
“Darling father!” she said, restraining herself with difficulty from leaping into his arms, “why—oh! why am I not—”
She had only got thus far when the janissary, whose suspicions had been aroused, pounced upon her, and, seizing her by the wrist, looked keenly into her face.
“Ho! ho!” he exclaimed, glancing from the girl to her sire, “what mystery have we here? Come, we must investigate this.”
Poor Hester winced from the pain of the rude soldier’s grip as he proceeded to drag her away. Her father, seeing that further concealment was impossible, and that final separation was inevitable, became desperate. With the bound of an enraged tiger he sprang on the soldier and throttled him. Both being powerful men they fell on the ground in a deadly struggle, at which sight Hester could only look on with clasped hands in helpless terror.
But the British seaman was at hand. He had feared that some such mischief would arise. Seeing that two other soldiers were running to the aid of their fallen comrade, he suddenly gave the signal for the revolt of the slaves. It was premature. Taken by surprise, the half-hearted among the conspirators paid no attention to it, while the timid stood more or less bewildered. Only a few of the resolute and reckless obeyed the call, but these furnished full employment for their guards, for, knowing that failure meant death, if not worse, they fought like fiends.
Meanwhile the first of the two soldiers who came running, sword in hand, towards Sommers, was met by Brown. With a piece of wood in his left hand, that worthy parried the blow that was delivered at his head. At the same time he sent his right fist into the countenance of his adversary with such force that he became limp and dropped like an empty topcoat. This was fortunate, for the companion janissary was close to him when he wheeled round. The blazing look of the seaman, however, induced so much caution in the Turk that, instead of using his sword, he drew a long pistol from his girdle and levelled it. Brown leaped upon him, caught the pistol as it exploded just in time to turn the muzzle aside, wrenched the weapon from his foe’s grasp, and brought the butt of it down with such a whack on his head that it laid him beside his comrade.
Turning quickly to the still struggling pair, he saw that the janissary was black in the face, and that Sommers was compressing his throat with both hands and had his knee on his stomach, while Hester and Sally were looking on horrified, but hopeful. At the same time he saw fresh soldiers running up the street to reinforce the guard.
“Hester,” he said sharply, and seizing the girl’s hand, “come, bolt with me. I’ve knowed your father a good while. Quick!”
“Impossible!” she cried, drawing back. “I will not leave my father now!”
“You’ll have to leave him anyhow,” cried the sailor. “You can do him no good. If free you might—”
A shout at the moment caused him to glance round. It proceeded both from slaves and guards, for both at the same moment caught sight of the approach of the reinforcements. The former scattered in all directions, and the latter gave chase, while pistol-shots and yells rent the air.
Instead of wasting more breath in useless entreaty, Brown seized the light form of Hester in his arms and ran with her to the ramparts. In the confusion of the general skirmish he was not observed—or, if observed, unheeded—by any one but Sally, who followed him in anxious haste, thinking that the man was mad, for there could be no possible way of escape, she thought, in that direction. She was wrong. There was method in Brown’s madness. He had for a long time previously studied all the possibilities with reference to the meditated uprising, and had laid down for himself several courses which he might pursue according to the success, failure, or partial failure of their plans.
There was one part of the rampart they were engaged in repairing at that time which had given way and partly fallen into the ditch outside. The portion of the wall still remaining had been further demolished in order that a more secure foundation might be laid. The broken wall here had been but partially rebuilt, and was not nearly as high as the completed wall. A jump from this might be possible to a strong active man if the ground below were soft, or even level—though the risk of broken limbs was considerable.
Brown had observed, however, that at this place a small tree grew out from a mass of rock which had been incorporated as part of the wall, and that just below it there stood a huge bush of the cactus kind. To these two he had made up his mind to intrust himself in the event of things coming to the worst.
Accordingly it was to this part of the rampart he ran with Hester in his strong arms. We have said that Sally ran after the sailor with anxiety, but that feeling was deepened into dismay when she saw him approach the portion of the wall just described, and she gave out one of her loudest coffee-pestle gasps when she saw him jump straight off the wall without a moment’s hesitation.
Craning her neck and gazing downward, she saw the sailor go crashing through the little tree and alight with a squash in the heart of the watery cactus, out of which he leaped with such agility that Sally was led to exclaim under her breath—
“Hoh! don’t de spikes make ’im jump!”
Whether it was the spikes or other influences we cannot tell, but certain it is that Brown did jump with wonderful activity, considering the burden he carried, dashed up the opposite bank, cut across country like a hunted hare, and found shelter in a neighbouring wood before the revolt in the city was completely quelled.
Here he pulled up and set the terrified Hester down.
“You’ll excuse me, miss,” he said pantingly, as he wiped his brows with the sleeve of his shirt—which garment, with a pair of canvas trousers, a grass hat, and thin carpet shoes, constituted his costume. “I’m wery sorry to carry you off agin’ your will, but you’ll thank me for it yet, maybe, for if I had left you behind, you couldn’t have helped your poor father, and they’d have took you off for sartin to be a slave. Now, d’ye see, if you an’ I manage to escape, there’s no sayin’ what we may do in the way o’ raisin’ ransom to buy back your father. Anyway, he has been so anxious about you, an’ afraid o’ your bein’ catched, an’ the terrible fate in store for you if you are, that I made up my mind for
his
sake to carry you off.”
To this explanation Hester listened with varying feelings.
“I believe, from the honesty of your look and tone,” she said, at last, “that you have acted for the best, whether wisely or not remains to be seen; but I thank you heartily for your intentions, and especially for your kind feelings towards my dear father; but now I must claim the right to use my own judgment. I will return to the city and succour my father, or perish with him. Yet, rest assured, I will never forget the brave seaman who has so nobly risked his life to save me. Your name is—”
“Brown, miss—at your service.”
“Well, good-bye, Brown, and God’s blessing attend you,” she said, extending her black little hand.
The seaman gently took it and gave it a timid pressure, as if he feared to crush it in his brawny hand.
“I’ll shake hands with you,” he said, “but I won’t say good-bye, for I’ll steer back to the city with you.”
“Brown, this is sheer madness. There is no reason in what you propose to do. You cannot help me by sacrificing yourself.”
“That’s exactly what yer father would say to you, miss, if he was alongside of us—‘You can’t help me by sacrificin’ of yerself.’ Then, p’r’aps he would foller up that obsarvation by sayin’, ‘but you may an’ can help me if you go wi’ that sailor-friend o’ mine, who may be rough and ready, but is sartinly true-blue, who knows the coast hereaway an’ all its hidin’-places, an’ who’ll wentur his life to do me a good turn, cause why? I once wentured my life to do him a good turn o’ the same kind.’”
“Is this true, Brown? Did you know my father before meeting him here; and did he really render you some service?”
“Yes, indeed, miss; I have sailed in one o’ your father’s wessels, an’ once I was washed overboard by a heavy sea, and he flung over a lifebuoy arter me, and jumped into the water himself to keep me afloat till a boat picked us up, for I couldn’t swim. Now, look ’ere, miss, if you’ll consent to sail under my orders for a short spell, you’ll have a better chance o’ doin’ your father a sarvice than by returnin’ to that nest o’ pirates. Moreover, you’ll have to make up your mind pretty quick, for we’ve lost too much time already.”
“Go on, Brown, I will trust you,” said Hester, placing her hand in that of the seaman, who, without another word, led her swiftly into the bush.
Now, all this, and a great deal more was afterwards related by Hester herself to her friends; but at the time all that was known to Sally—the only witness of the exploit—was that Hester Sommers had been carried off in the manner related by an apparently friendly British sailor. This she told soon after to Peter the Great, and this was the substance of the communication which Peter the Great, with glaring eyes and bated breath, made to George Foster, who received it with feelings and expressions that varied amazingly as the narrative proceeded.
“Is that all?” he asked, when the negro at length came to a decided stop.
“Das all—an’ it’s enuff too! ’Pears to me you’s not so much cut up about dis leetle business as I ’spected you would be.”
“I am anxious, of course, about Hester,” returned the middy; “but at the same time greatly relieved, first, to know that she is in the hands of a respectable British sailor; and, second, that she is
not
in the hands of these bloodthirsty piratical Moors. But what about her father? Nothing more, I suppose, is known about his fate?”
“Not’ing, on’y it’s as sure as if we did know it. If his carcass isn’t on de hooks by dis time it’ll soon be.”
As the negro spoke the midshipman started up with flashing eyes, exclaimed angrily, “It shall
never
be,” and ran out of the bower.
Entering the house, he went straight to Ben-Ahmed’s private chamber, which he entered boldly, without even knocking at the door.
The Moor was seated cross-legs on a mat, solacing himself, as usual, with a pipe. He was not a little surprised, and at first was inclined to be angry, at the abrupt entrance of his slave.
“Ben-Ahmed,” said the middy, with vehemence, “the father of the English girl you are so fond of—and whom I
love
—is in terrible danger, and if you are a true man—as I firmly believe you are—you will save him.”
The Moor smiled very slightly at the youth’s vehemence, pointed with the mouthpiece of his hookah to a cushion, and bade him sit down and tell him all about it.
The middy at once squatted
à la Turk
, not on the cushion, but on the floor, in front of his master, and, with earnest voice and gesture, related the story which Peter the Great had just told him.
Ben-Ahmed was visibly affected by it.
“But how can I save him?” he asked, with a look of perplexity.
“Did you not once save the life of the Dey?” asked Foster.
“I did. How came you to know that?”
“I heard it from Peter the Great, who aided you on the occasion. And he told me that the Dey has often since then offered to do you some good turn, but that you have always declined.”
“That is true,” said Ben-Ahmed, with the look of a man into whose mind a new idea had been introduced.
“Yes, something may be done in that way, and it would grieve me that the father of my poor little Hester should die. I will try. Go, have my horse saddled, and send Peter to me.”
Our midshipman bounded rather than rose from the floor, and uttered an irresistible, “God bless you,” as he vanished through the doorway on his errand.
“Peter,” he cried—encountering that worthy as he ran—“we’ll manage it! Go to Ben-Ahmed! He wants you—quick! I’m off to fetch his horse.”
Foster was much too anxious to have the thing done quickly to give the order to the head groom. He ran direct to the stable, and, choosing the fleetest of the Moor’s Arab steeds, quickly put on its crimson saddle, with its un-European peaks before and behind, and the other gay portions of harness with which Easterns are wont to caparison their horses.
In a wonderfully short space of time he had the steed round to the front door, and sent another slave to tell his master that it was ready.
The Moor had also caparisoned himself, if we may say so, for the intended visit, and he had evidently done it in haste. Nevertheless, his gait was stately, and his movements were slow, as he gravely mounted the horse and rode away. The impatience of the middy was somewhat relieved, however, when he saw that Ben-Ahmed, on reaching the main road, put spurs to his horse, and rode towards the city at full gallop.
Chapter Fifteen
A Strange Visit, a Strange Commission, and a Strange Display of Temper
After Ben-Ahmed had departed on his mission to the Dey of Algiers, George Foster and Peter the Great re-entered the house, and in the seclusion of the bower continued to discuss the hopes, fears, and possibilities connected with the situation.
“Dat was a clebber dodge ob yours, Geo’ge,” remarked the negro, “an’ I’s got good hope dat somet’ing will come ob it, for massa’s pretty sure to succeed w’en he take a t’ing in hand.”
“I’m glad you think so, Peter. And, to say truth, I am myself very sanguine.”
“But dere’s one t’ing dat ’plexes me bery much. What is we to do about poo’ Hester’s fadder w’en he’s pardoned? De Dey can spare his life, but he won’t set him free—an’ if he don’t set him free de slabe-drivers ’ll be sure to kill ’im out ob spite.”
The middy was silent, for he could not see his way out of this difficulty.
“Perhaps,” he said, “Ben-Ahmed may have thought of that, and will provide against it, for of course he knows all the outs and ins of Moorish life, and he is a thoughtful man.”
“Das true, Geo’ge. He
am
a t’oughtful man. Anyhow, we kin do not’ing more, ’cept wait an’ see. But I’s much more ’plexed about Hester, for eben if de sailor am a good an’ true man, as you say, he can’t keep her or his-self alibe on not’ing in de mountains, no more’n he could swim wid her on his back across de Mederainyon!”
Again the middy was silent for a time. He could by no means see his way out of this greater difficulty, and his heart almost failed him as he thought of the poor girl wandering in the wilderness without food or shelter.
“P’r’aps,” suggested Peter, “she may manage to git into de town an’ pass for a nigger as she’s dood before, an’ make tracks for her old place wid Missis Lilly—or wid Dinah.”
“No doubt she may,” cried Foster, grasping at the hope as a drowning man grasps at a plank. “Nothing more likely. Wouldn’t it be a good plan for you to go into town at once and make inquiry?”
“Dessay it would,” returned the negro. “Das just what I’ll do, an’ if she’s not dere, Dinah may gib my int’lec’ a jog. She’s a wonderful woman, Dinah, for workin’ up de human mind w’en it’s like goin’ to sleep. Poo’ Samson hab diskivered dat many times. I’ll go at once.”
“Do, Peter, my fine fellow, and you’ll lay me for ever under the deepest ob—”
He was interrupted by a slave who at the moment approached the bower and said that a man wanted to see Peter the Great.
“To see Ben-Ahmed, you mean,” said Peter.
“No—to see yourself,” returned the slave.
“Sen’ ’im here,” said the negro, with a magnificent wave of the hand.
In a few minutes the slave returned accompanied by a negro, who limped so badly that he was obliged to use a stick, and whose head was bandaged up with a blue cloth. Arrived at the bower, he stood before Peter the Great and groaned.
“You may go,” said Peter to the slave, who lingered as if anxious to hear the news of the visitor. When he was out of hearing, Peter turned to the lame man, looked him sharply in the face, and said—
“You’s bery black in de face, my frind, but you’s much blacker in de h’art. What business hab you to come here widout washin’ your white face clean?”
“Well, you’re a pretty smart chap for a nigger. An’ I dare say you’ll understand that I’d have had some difficulty in fetchin’ this here port at all if I’d washed my face,” answered the lame man, in excellent nautical English.
While he spoke, Foster ran towards him, laid a hand on his shoulder, and looked earnestly into his face.
“You are the British sailor,” he said, “who rescued Hes—Miss Sommers from the janissaries?”
“That’s me to a tee,” replied the sailor, with a broad grin.
“Is Miss Sommers safe?” asked the middy anxiously.
“Ay! safe as any woman can be in this world. Leastwise, she’s in a cave wi’ three o’ the toughest sea-dogs as any man could wish to see—one o’ them bein’ a Maltese an’ the other two bein’ true-blue John Bulls as well as Jack Tars. But Miss Sommers gave me orders to say my say to Peter the Great, so if this nigger is him, I’ll be obleeged if he’ll have a little private conversation wi’ me.”
“Did Miss Sommers say that I was not to hear the message?” asked the middy, in some surprise.
“She made no mention o’
you
, or anybody else at all, as I knows on,” returned the sailor firmly, “an’ as my orders was to Peter the Great, an’ as this seems to be him, from Sally’s description—a monstrous big, fine-lookin’ nigger, with a lively face—I’ll say my say to him
alone
, with your leave.”
“You may say it where you is, for dis yar gen’lem’n is a frind ob mine, an’ a hofficer in the Bri’sh navy, an’ a most ’tickler friend of Hester Sommers, so we all frinds togidder.”
“You’ll excuse me, sir,” said the seaman, touching his forelock, “but you don’t look much like a’ officer in your present costoom. Well, then, here’s wot I’ve got to say—”
“Don’t waste your time, Brown, in spinning the yarn of your rescue of the girl,” said Foster, interrupting; “we’ve heard all about it already from Sally, and can never sufficiently express our thanks to you for your brave conduct. Tell us, now, what happened after you disappeared from Sally’s view.”
The sailor thereupon told them all about his subsequent proceedings—how he had persuaded Hester to accompany him through the woods and by a round about route to a part of the coast where he expected ere long to find friends to rescue him. From some reason or other best known to himself, he was very secretive in regard to the way in which these friends had managed to communicate with him.
“You see I’m not free to speak out all I knows,” he said. “But surely it’s enough to say that my friends have not failed me; that I found them waitin’ there with a small boat, so light that they had dragged it up an’ concealed it among the rocks, an’ that I’d have bin on my way to old England at this good hour if it hadn’t bin for poor Miss Sommers, whom we couldn’t think of desartin’.”
“Then she refused to go with you?” said Foster.
“Refused! I should think she did! Nothing, she said, would indooce her to leave Algiers while her father was in it. One o’ my mates was for forcing her into the boat, an’ carryin’ her off, willin’ or not willin’, but I stood out agin’ him, as I’d done enough o’ that to the poor thing already. Then she axed me to come along here an’ ax Peter the Great if he knowed anything about her father. ‘But I don’t know Peter the Great,’ says I, ‘nor where he lives.’ ‘Go to Sally,’ says she, ‘an’ you’ll get all the information you need.’ ‘But I’ll never get the length o’ Sally without being nabbed,’ says I. ‘Oh!’ says she, ‘no fear o’ that. Just you let me make a nigger of you. I always keep the stuff about me in my pocket, for I so often cry it off that I need to renew it frequently.’ An’ with that she out with a parcel o’ black stuff and made me into a nigger before you could say Jack Robinson. Fort’nately, I’ve got a pretty fat lump of a nose of my own, an’ my lips are pretty thick by natur’, so that with a little what you may call hard poutin’ when I had to pass guards, janissaries, an’ such like, I managed to get to where Missis Lilly an’ Sally lived, an’ they sent me on here. An’ now the question is, what’s to be done, for it’s quite clear that my mates an’ me can’t remain for ever hidin’ among the rocks. We must be off; an’ I want to know, are we to take this poor gal with us, or are we to leave her behind, an’, if so, what are her friends a-goin’ to do for her?”
“There’s no fear of your friends going off without you, I suppose?”
“Well, as they risked their precious lives to rescue me, it ain’t likely,” returned the seaman.
“Would it not be well to keep Brown here till Ben-Ahmed returns?” asked Foster, turning to Peter the Great.
The negro knitted his brows and looked vacantly up through the leafy roof of the bower, as if in profound meditation. Some of the brighter stars were beginning to twinkle in the darkening sky by that time, and one of them seemed to wink at him encouragingly, for he suddenly turned to the middy with all the energy of his nature, exclaiming, “I’s got it!” and brought his great palm down on his greater thigh with a resounding slap.
“If it’s in your breeches pocket you must have squashed it, then!” said Brown—referring to the slap. “Anyhow, if you’ve got it, hold on to it an’ let’s hear what it is.”
“No—not now. All in good time. Patience, my frind, is a virtoo wuf cultivation—”
“You needn’t go for to tell
that
to a Bagnio slave like me, Mister Peter. Your greatness might have made you aware o’ that,” returned the sailor quietly.
An eye-shutting grin was Peter’s reply to this, and further converse was stopped by the sound of clattering hoofs.
“Massa!” exclaimed the negro, listening. “Das good. No time lost. Come wid me, you sham nigger, an’ I’s gib you somet’ing to tickle you stummik. You go an’ look arter de hoss, Geo’ge.”
While the middy ran to the gate to receive his master, Peter the Great led the sham nigger to the culinary regions, where, in a sequestered corner, he supplied him with a bowl containing a savoury compound of chicken and rice.
“I hope that all has gone well?” Foster ventured to ask as the Moor dismounted.
“All well. Send Peter to me immediately,” he replied, and, without another word, hurried into the house.
Calling another slave and handing over the smoking horse to him, Foster ran to the kitchen.
“Peter, you’re—”
“Wanted ’meeditly—yes, yes—I knows dat. What a t’ing it is to be in’spensible to anybody! I don’t know how he’ll eber git along widout me.”
Saying which he hurried away, leaving the middy to do the honours of the house to the sailor.
“I s’pose, sir, you haven’t a notion what sort o’ plans that nigger has got in his head?” asked the latter.
“Not the least idea. All I know is that he is a very clever fellow and never seems very confident about anything without good reason.”
“Well, whatever he’s a-goin’ to do, I hope he’ll look sharp about it, for poor Miss Sommers’s fate and the lives o’ my mates, to say nothin’ of my own, is hangin’ at this moment on a hair—so to speak,” returned the sailor, as he carefully scraped up and consumed the very last grain of the savoury mess, murmuring, as he did so, that it was out o’ sight the wery best blow-out he’d had since he enjoyed his last Christmas dinner in old England.
“Will you have some more?” asked the sympathetic middy.
“No more, sir, thankee. I’m loaded fairly down to the water-line. Another grain would bust up the hatches; but if I might ventur’ to putt forth a wish now, a glass o’—no? well, no matter, a drop o’ water’ll do. I’m well used to it now, havin’ drunk enough to float a seventy-four since I come to this city o’ pirates.”
“You will find coffee much more agreeable as well as better for you. I have learned that from experience,” said the middy, pouring out a tiny cupful from an earthen coffee-pot that always stood simmering beside the charcoal fire.
“Another of that same, sir, if you please,” said the seaman, tossing off the cupful, which, indeed, scarcely sufficed to fill his capacious mouth. “Why they should take their liquor in these parts out o’ things that ain’t much bigger than my old mother’s thimble, passes my comprehension. You wouldn’t mind another?—thankee.”
“As many as you please, Brown,” said the middy, laughing, as he poured out cupful after cupful; “there’s no fear of your getting half-seas-over on that tipple!”
“I only wish I
was
half-seas-over, or even a quarter that length. Your health, sir!” returned Brown, with a sigh, as he drained the last cup.
Just then Peter the Great burst into the kitchen in a very elated condition.
“Geo’ge,” he cried, “you be off. Massa wants you—’meeditly. But fust, let me ax—you understan’ de place among de rocks whar Brown’s mates and de boat am hidden?”
“Yes, I know the place well.”
“You knows how to get to it?”
“Of course I do.”
“Das all right; now come along—come along, you sham nigger, wid me. Has you got enuff?”
“Bustin’—all but.”
“Das good now; you follow me; do what you’s tol’; hol’ you tongue, an’ look sharp, if you don’ want your head cut off.”
“Heave ahead, cap’n; I’m your man.”
The two left the house together and took the road that led to the hill country in rear of the dwelling.
Meanwhile Geo