"It ain't spirits that worries me," said Gleazen, at last, "and it ain't niggers. It's men." He now seemed quite to shake off the spell of the strange voice. "What say, Seth?" He turned to my uncle.
To my surprise, Seth Upham rose manfully to the occasion. "Spirits?" he cried. "Nonsense!"
O'Hara uneasily shifted his feet. "Ah, say what you like, men," he very earnestly replied, "say what you like against spirits and greegrees and jujus and all the rest. I'll never be one to say there's nothing in them, nor would you, if you'd seen all that I have seen. And I'll be telling you this, men: that voice we heard then was speaking the thoughts of ten thousand fighting niggers up and down this river."
"Pfaw!" said Gleazen, stretching his arms. "Niggers won't fight."
"That from you, Neil!"
I never learned just what lay behind O'Hara's simple thrust, but there was no doubt that it struck a weak link in Gleazen's armor, for he flushed so deeply that we could see it by lantern light. "Well, now," said he, with a conciliatory inflection, "of course I meant it in moderation."
All this time Arnold and Gideon North and I stood by and looked and listened.
Now, with a glance at us, Matterson said shortly, "Come, come! Enough of that. All hands lay to and load the boat."
"I've warned ye," said O'Hara.
"At midnight," said Matterson, "we'll go up the river, and Gideon North'll take the brig down the river. Come morning there'll be no stick nor timber of us here. They'll bother no more about us then."