"Feel bad? you'd better beleib I did! Do you know what de matter wid me?"
"No."
"I had de Norf American cholera; dat's worse dan de African. I also had the pneumonia, and de bronchitis, and de measles, and de small-pox, and the cholly-wampus--all at the same time. Do you wonder dat I groaned?"
"I shouldn't think you could groan at all, if you had so many diseases as that."
"Dar's war my toughness and wrastling powers show themselves. I just wrastled and wrastled, and I frowed 'em all."
Sam swung his huge legs out of the hammock, took a seat near Jim, and, reaching out, he gently closed his immense fist around the little white hand of the boy. Then leaning forward until his black face, as broad as the moon, was almost against Jim's, he whispered,--
"Yous been mighty kind to me, sonny, and, as I obsarved befor', I ain't de one to forget it. Now, don't you disremember what I toles you. You tink it's all nice and pleasant here on de boat, and so it am jis' now, but dar's breakers ahead! Dat boss ob mine am one ob de biggest debbils dat am runnin' loose. Ef I should tell yous all dat I know 'bout him, your hair would rose up and stick frough de roof wid horror. Can you swim, sonny?"
"I am a good swimmer."
"Berry well; I'm mighty glad to hear dat; it's likely dat you'll hab to swim for your life one ob dese days. Don't roll your eyes so--I don't mean dat we's going to be wracked. But what I want to say am dat you must keep mum, and don't let on dat you don't know nuffin. Don't act as though you and me was much friends when de rest am 'bout, but you know dat I'm jis' de best one dat you'll eber find."
"I understand all that," said Jim, who saw that the plan was only a simple precaution against drawing suspicion to them; "but I had no thought that any one would want to hurt me."