“If you are going to make sail, my man, you and your mates will have to take your captain and carry him off in his present state,” said Justin, speaking with a forced quietness.
“By all the fiends in flames, we’d serve him right to leave him here! And a precious good opportunity to get rid of him; and a glorious riddance it would be, too!” said the man, stooping over and staring at the fallen captain.
“You would not surely abandon your chief in his present helpless state of unconsciousness?” remonstrated Justin, who had no desire to receive the pirate permanently.
“Oh, wouldn’t we, though? I don’t know why we come back for him at all, that I don’t! If anybody had stated the proposition to sail without him, I’m sure we would have done it. If we leave him here it will save his life and save us the trouble of cutting his throat, which we would be sure to do before long,” said the man, coolly, as with his hands on his knees he stooped low and stared intently into the stupid face of the captain.
“Is he so very unpopular on his ship, then?” inquired Justin, as with difficulty he repressed the disgust and horror awakened by the man’s words and manner.
“Unpopular! Why, shiver my timbers, if we have ever been in a fight or storm yet that he hasn’t got as drunk as Julius Cæsar, and left the ordering of the fight, or the working of the ship, to Mate Mulligan. And Mulligan we want for our captain. And Mulligan we mean to have!” said the man, suddenly turning and leaving the unconscious captain and going out to his companions, to whom he began to talk in a low and earnest voice.
Justin did not attempt to follow or to interfere with him. Upon reflection he was glad that a subject so full of interest and excitement as the disposition and desertion of their captain by his crew should have arisen to engage their thoughts and prevent them from remembering the existence of the women on the island. He watched the man who was haranguing his mates outside; he saw how, with eager eyes and fierce gestures, they crowded around him; and so he was not surprised when the speaker at length left his turbulent hearers and returned to the grotto door and touched his hat and said:
“Master, the boys mean to leave that lubber here and elect Mate Mulligan captain and me first mate. But, master, we will take you off, as you have done the handsome by us in the matter of the keg of whisky; if you don’t mind cruising round a bit with the certainty of a fight now and then, and the chance of some day or other getting into port somewhere.”
“Thank you; but I am colonized here for the present, and do not wish to leave just yet,” said Justin.
“Just as you please, master! Have you got any more of that good liquor left?”