"Can this here aboriginal speak English?"
"He can talk Beach-le-mer, a kind of pidgin English of the South Seas."
"Same as that flapjack-tossin' Chink, Lung?"
"Pretty much the same."
"Wall, I surmise he regyards that 'ere hunchbacked, ebony mannikin as havin' pulled him through this devastatin' holocaust, scurvy, which downs the rest of the band so free an' easy," remarked the cowboy musingly.
"What are we goin' to do, Jack?" asked the boy, with chattering teeth. "Can't we rout out some dry duds? I'm near froze standin' here talkin'."
"That's certainly the first thing to be thought about," agreed the rolling-stone. "Then, when we've overhauled the ship below, we'll have a powwow."
Leaving the two Kanakas on deck, they descended the companion-way, and found themselves in a fair-sized cabin, with doorways opening out of it.
In the centre was an inlaid mother-of-pearl table, and the bulkheads were hung with curios of every description—spears of all shapes and sizes, fantastic-looking bone-studded clubs, various harpoons, some twisted and bent, evidently the relics of by-gone battles, swords of sharks' teeth, ships' models in bottles, specimens of skrimshander, rare shells and Japanese nitchkies in cabinets, carved cocoanuts, feather cloaks and war head-dresses; and last, but not least, some fearfully-grinning Japanese masks.