Ortho grunted.
“Oh, well, mayn’t be so bad. You’m a likely lad; you’ll fetch a good price, mayhap, and get a good master. ’Tain’t the strong mule catches the whip; ’tis the old uns—y’understan’? To-morrow’s the best day for hard work over there and the climate’s prime; better nor England by a long hawse, and that’s the Gospel truth, y’understan’?”
“How do you know?” Ortho inquired.
The man snorted. “Know? Ain’t I been there nine year?”
“In Sallee?”
“No—Algiers . . . but it’s the same, see what I mean? Nine years a slave with old Abd-el-Hamri in Sidi-Okbar Street. Only exchanged last summer, and now, dang my tripes, if I ain’t took again!”
“Where did they catch you?”
“Off Prawle Point on Tuesday in the Harvest, yawl of Brixham—I’m a Brixham man, y’understan’? Puddicombe by name. I did swere and vow once I was ashore I would never set foot afloat no more. Then my sister Johanna’s George took sick with a flux and I went in his place just for a day—and now here we are again—hey, hey!”
“Who are all these foreigners?” asked Ortho.
“Hollanders, took off a Dutch East Indiaman. This be her freight we’m lyin’ on now, see what I mean? They got it split up between the three on ’em. There’s three on ’em, y’understan’; was four, but the Hollander sank one before she was carried, so they say, and tore up t’other two cruel. The old reis—admiral that is—he’s lost his mainmast. You can hear he banging away at night to keep his consorts close; scared, y’understan’? Howsombeit they done well enough. Only been out two months and they’ve got the cream of an Indies freight, not to speak of three or four coasters and a couple of hundred poor sailors that should fetch from thirty to fifty ducats apiece in the soko. And then there’s the ransoms too, see what I mean?”