"Yes, but you wouldn't recommend joking with him as we do with Mr. Mole?"
"No. I'd let it be no joke, Massa Jack; I'd just frighten him out of his darned skin, dat's all."
Harry Girdwood was taken into their confidence, and a fine plot was agreed upon.
The only difficulty was the sailor nurse.
Joe Basalt was on guard again.
They gave Joe Basalt a good stiff tumbler of grog—and where is the sailor who could resist that?—and oh, wickedness! the grog was hocussed.
In plainer language, that means drugged.
Not very long after drinking their healths in a bumper, old Joe felt drowsy, and he fell asleep.
The patient slept, and would not have awakened probably for two hours had not the two negroes Sunday and Monday set up a most unearthly, moaning noise.
The pitch was low but thrilling, and not the pleasantest thing for a man to hear with a conscience laden with guilt as was the wretched man Hunston's.