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"Look here, squaire," he said, "I give in, but yew're an officer and I'm an officer. Play fair with a man. That nigger'll kill me sure as a gun if I go along with him. Seems to me I shan't be safe 'less I'm along o' you, so I guess I'll stop here." Mark was about to insist, but a glance at Soup was sufficient to alter his mind. "Very well, stop for the present, sir, till I go back aboard."
Yewr cap'en don't like it, p'r'aps; but I see yew pulling away at a cigar threw my glass." Mark turned crimson. "Needn't tell a cracker about it, squaire. Here we are," he continued, taking the papers from Ephraim evidently his mate. "Hev a look at 'em, squaire; but I reckon if one of our officers was to board one of your traders, and ask for 'em, yewr folk'd make no end of a fizzle about it."
"Your rations shall be served out to you all in good time," replied Mark. "But we want 'em now, mister; my lads are half famished." "I tell you that you shall have them soon, so wait patiently." "Wall, don't be ugly about it, squaire. We're not ugly now. Look here, it's hot and smothering down here. Let us come up on deck and have a confab about this business.
"I have done it," said Mark, sharply. "What! going to keep them free American citizens prisoners below like a pack o' niggers?" "Why not?" said Mark. "Do you think I'm going to let you and your men hatch up a scheme to retake this schooner?" The man laughed. "Guess yew're a sharp one, squaire. Wall, what are you going to do with me?" "Take you aboard my ship, sir."
"Get out, you Esculapian; but I'll give you somethin', by-and-by, just to make you remimber that you know nothin' off wid you to your sate, you spalpeen you to tell me that there can't be less than nothin' when it's well known that sporting Squaire O'Canter's worth a thousand pounds less than nothin'."
"Ah, so yew did, and now yew've got another, but yew don't want a lot o' Murrican corpses aboard, squaire, so let us out, so as we can breathe. We'll make a truce with yew." The boat had come back from the second prize, and Tom Fillot walked up to look on, listening and wondering.
There wor Squire Maunder," here John assumed his full historical key, "him wi' the pot to his vittle-place; and Sir Richard Blewitt shaking over the zaddle, and Squaire Sandford of Lee, him wi' the long nose and one eye, and Sir Gronus Batchildor over to Ninehead Court, and ever so many more on 'em, tulling up how they was arl gooin' to be promoted, for kitching of Tom Faggus.
"Yew're going back, then?" said the American, with a flash of the eye. "I am, sir," said Mark, sharply, "but I'm going to leave a strong prize crew here on board, and I wouldn't advise you or your men to make any attempt at recapture. Matters might turn out, as you call it, `ugly." "All right, squaire, but I don't see where your strong prize crew is coming from," said the man, drily.
"We've made a mistake," he thought, as the writing on the papers seemed to dance before his eyes; "and yet I could have sworn she was a slaver." "Find 'em all right and squaire?" said the American, with his little grey eyes twinkling; and he held out his hand for the papers. "Yes," said Mark, returning them reluctantly, and then glancing at Tom Elliot, whose countenance was a puzzle.
"Guess them two niggers o' yewrn hev got the megrims, squaire. Get 'em both aboard, lay 'em down, and hev 'em dowsed with buckets o' water." "Stop!" cried Mark, excitedly, as he thrust back the American. "Here, my lads, what is it?"
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