“What is it?” queried Dave, carefully hitching his lacerated ear from the persistent grip of the lawyer.
“How do I know?” queried Tom sotto voce. “I ain’t a clairvoyant; it might be a opposition pirate for all I know.”
“Tom,” asked Dave, after a pause, “do you think there is any pirates now—real pirates, I mean?”
“Of course,” replied Tom, “and if there ain’t there ought to be. We’re going to be pirates, anyhow!”
“But,” persisted Dave, “didn’t pirates used to get hung?”
“Sometimes,” returned the other boy, “when they wuz ketched; but they mostly got killed after they’d had an all right rippin’ round an’ plunderin’ an’ buryin’ great piles of sovereigns an’ bars of gold in caves on desert islands. Any pirate that thought anything of ’imself as a pirate would go down into the powder magazine when he found it was all up an’ fire ’is pistol into the powder, an’ blow ’imself up with ’is pirate crew.”
“Was the first mute blowed up too?” asked Dave, anxiously.
“Of course!” replied Tom, “if he wasn’t killed on the fore-’atch furst.”
“What’s the fore-’atch?”