The black at last opened his blubber lips, and replied, in broken Spanish, which I may render into English thus: ‘What am me to you? What you want hear about me for?’
‘Never mind that, Wooroo,’ says the captain, ‘if we have a fancy to hear you speak. I will give you brandy, man.’
The eyes of the negro glistened, and Captain Garbo winking at me, went on: ‘You shall be drunk, Wooroo; drunker than you ever were before, Caramba! so drunk that you can’t lie flat even without holding on by the mast.’
It was pitiful to see how the brute-man shook himself with pleasure, and how his features worked.
‘You make me very drunk—dead drunk?’ he grunted.
‘As dead as though you were smothered in a brandy cask, you two-legged hog,’ returned the captain; ‘and what’s more, you shall have a draught to wet your whistle, and set your tongue loose at once.’ So saying, the Spaniard disappeared down the narrow hatch, and presently emerged, bearing a large leathern bottle, with three drinking mugs, one of which he filled with hot, strong brandy; the savage tossed it off and held out the vessel for more.
‘No, no,’ said Garbo; ‘you shall not get drunk until we have the story out of you. Come, heave a-head!—heave a-head!’
The black at this began to speak. First, he discoursed in a monotonous tone, all the while eyeing the brandy, and evidently thinking of it. But presently, as he proceeded, he warmed over the tale, and spoke with emphasis, and often in a loud, fast tone, making violent gesticulations with his black, brawny arms, until, at length, as his excitement increased, he would, every now and then, burst from the broken Spanish, in which he, no doubt, found it difficult to clothe his thoughts, into his own tongue, a strange, husky sputtering, rising, as it were, from his very stomach; but being promptly admonished on these occasions that we were not savages, and understood not the gabble of his coast, he would stop, ask for a little brandy, and having drunk it, resume again his narrative in such Spanish as he could speak. I will try to give in English some imitation of his words; only the reader must remember that they seemed doubly strange to me, hearing them, as I did, in the harsh, deep tones of the savage, and marking his glistening teeth, and white, staring eyeballs, and clenched fists wildly waved around while he spoke. Somewhat in this fashion ran his tale.
The Story of the Negro Diver.
‘I come from across the sea, and I am a slave. I dive into the water, and I bring up shell-fish, with white stones, which Spaniards worship. I am a great diver, and I can kill sharks with the sharp knife I carry in my hand. I was born in a wood, near a river. I curse them who carried me away. I make fetish to curse them. I ask the big Spirit that lives in fever mists to torment them. They are not alive, but bad wishes follow dead men to where they go. I helped to kill them, but still they carried me away across the sea, and I am here!