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And if half the head-money and the crew's pay were laid down in advance? For it is hard, as you have often said, Captain, that anything should happen to brave and willing men on such a cruise and they have neither profit nor safety of it."
Lushington showed plainly that the greater part of the fleet, having taken no share in the action, had no right to head-money, and that therefore all ought to be divided among those who actually shared with Lord Cochrane the danger and the success of the enterprise. Therefore he thwarted it by delays.
With a cry, Barrett came at him and seized his lean throat. "You damned highbinder!" he gasped. "You saddle-nosed monkey! You'll get me what I want or I'll give you away. Don't I know why you're up here in these woods, with your pretty clothes and your English talk? A-ha! You bet I do! You're hiding, and you're wanted," he dropped his voice to a whisper, "the tongs would pay head-money for you.
These corsairs are desperate rogues after the siller, and, taking hull, sails, armament, head-money, and the scrapings of the lockers together, I shouldn't marvel if she come to something as good as £8,000 or £10,000. This would be fair dividing for a sloop, but would amount to a painfully small trifle, as between the officers of three ships, after deducting the admiral's share.
About a quarter-of-an-hour after the action had ceased, just after daylight, a 64-gun ship, the Veteran, was seen approaching, and the French officers afterwards refused to sign the usual head-money certificate unless the Veteran was named as one of their captors, though they afterwards withdrew their objections, which were absurd, considering that though she had seen the flashes of their guns, she had not caught sight of the combatants until the Pique was in possession of her captors.
On the sale of every slave, he has, in addition to the head-money, a dollar and a half, which, at the rate of 4,000, gives another 6,000 dollars. The captured slaves are sold by auction, at which the sultan's brokers attend, bidding high only for the finest.
The music had ceased by command, and nothing was now audible but the regular tread of the soldiers, with the sighs of the dying gale, interrupted occasionally by the voice of an officer, or the hum of low dialogue. "This has been a Scotch prize that we've taken," muttered a surly old seaman; "a ship without head-money or cargo!
This premium on blood was wrong in principle, and the result of a wholesale slaughter of Eastern pirates by order of Brooke, led to the very proper abolition of the custom of paying this "head-money."
Moreover, it rankles in the Houseman's breast that no Stockader pays a farthing of head-money to the treasure-chest of the Doomsmen. Now and then some well-to-do proprietor may suffer loss from cattle thieving and rick burning, but as often as not the marauders pay full price for all they get.
At last he looked up. "It doesn't pay any more, Rimmle." "Well, in these days," observed Rimmle, "I don't blame you, with the bull-dogs of men-o'-war making it so hot." We all had to smile at that, and Rimmle, seeing that Captain Blaise was not to be shamed into it, went on. "But suppose there was larger head-money than ever was paid before, Captain?