I started violently.
This rascal, then, spoke English, or a rude smattering of it, at any rate!
The mule-driver noted my surprise, and gave a guffaw. Then he pointed to three basins of some kind of porridge which stood upon the deck close beside him. In each reposed a wooden spoon of very ample dimensions.
“Brokefast!” he ejaculated. “Englishmans get plenty fat on him,” and before I had recovered from my astonishment he had glided away and disappeared swiftly and silently up the hatchway.
“An evil spirit!” I muttered to myself with an involuntary shudder, and then I aroused my shipmates by calling them by their names. At first they seemed greatly startled, but they quickly realized their position, and asked me how I had slept.
I told them of the mule-driver’s appearance, and of his knowledge of English; and then I pointed to the three basins of porridge, which were just within my reach.
“Understands our lingo, does he?” remarked Mr. Triggs thoughtfully. “Then he’s a smart fellow in his way, you may depend, and knows a doosid sight more about us than he ought to.”
“He wouldn’t have been of much use to his mates as a spy if he hadn’t ferreted out summat or another,” said Ned. “Will you be so kind, Mr. Darcy, as to give me up one of them basins of skilly, for I’m mortal empty and mortal dry?”
I glanced at my coxswain, and was pleased to see that he was looking better and cheerier.
In a moment we each had a basin of porridge in our hands, and were assiduously stirring the not very appetizing compound contained therein.