“Oh! oh-o-o-o!”
“But we don’t propose to do it. We are not going away to leave you here. To-morrow we shall have a proposal to offer to your mates, which they will be glad to accept. That is about all I have to say to you.”
CHAPTER XIX
THE DEPARTURE
As Mate Storms said, he had but little more communication to make with the negro.
“You may now swim back to your friends and say that we will be ready to negotiate to-morrow morning. If they will come down to the shore, we will have a talk and arrange the whole business. Now, perhaps, you had better go back.”
Pomp Cooper was quick-witted enough to understand that this utterance was in the nature of a hint for him to depart, and he stood not on the order of his going.
“Good-by, sah,” he called out. “Much obleege fo’ your kindness, dat I shall remember a good while.”