"What way will this be that ye act, ye lackey?" he demanded with an excellent imitation of Flint's manner. "Will ye be too stupid or feared to see we are waitin' our bite and sup?"
"Stop! Stop!" I intervened as poor Gunn started to scramble from the cabin. "How comes it you are here? Do I understand you have been relegated to your former duties by Captain Flint?"
"I don't know what relegated means, Master Ormerod," replied Gunn forlornly; "but I'm doin' my former dooties, yessir. I figgered last night 'twas all up wi' Cap'n Murray, which same I hears is true, and so I says to myself, I says, 'Ben, you go and tell Cap'n Flint here's a man as is glad and willin' to j'in up and serve him handsome, a man as is as good a sailor, give him a chance, as any afloat.'"
He shuffled his feet a moment, regarding me sidewise.
"Ye see," he amended, "I figgered as how with Cap'n Murray gone 'twouldn't hardly be possible for you to give me the new ratin' we talked about once. And then bein' the circumstances it seemed all ways fair as I should make the best deal——"
"Yes, yes," I said; "but what did Cap'n Flint say?"
Ben Gunn scratched his head in some perplexity.
"He said summat as how I was too good a lackey to spoil. And then he called to Darby and told him a good cabin boy desarved his own sarvant and here I was. And here I be, sir! Unlucky I were born, steppin' into a livery-shuit as page-boy, and unlucky I ha' lived. And unlucky I'll die, I reckon, sir. But I won't die in no livery-shuit, no, sir!"
With which he shuffled off.
"The ignorant natural!" snorted Darby disgustedly. "Him to be a pirate!"