“Bah!” said Blake, turning on his heel, and walking to the window.
Iverson, who dreaded a scene, smoothed over the affront with a lie. “The fact is, Colonel,” whispered he, “Blake wouldn’t be fit for duty if he were to drink with us. A spoonful upsets him; but he’s ashamed to confess it. A weak head! You understand?”
The explanation pacified the Colonel. Indeed, his sympathies were at once wakened for the unhappy man who couldn’t drink. This representative of the interests of slavery certainly did not prepossess Blake in favor of his mission; but justice must be done, notwithstanding the character of the claimant.
An addition was now made to the circle. Captain Skinner and Biggs, the sailor already mentioned,—a short, thick-set stump of a man, with only one eye, and that black and overarched by a bushy, gray eyebrow,—a very wicked-looking old fellow,—entered and made themselves known to the Colonel. They had come up from New London, to serve as witnesses. As a matter of policy, the Colonel could not do less than ask them to join in the raid on the whiskey decanter; and this they did so effectually that the last drop disappeared in Biggs’s capacious tumbler.
As it was not yet time for the appointment at Charlton’s office, the party, all but Blake, took chairs and lighted cigars, and the Colonel asked Captain Skinner to narrate the circumstances of Peek’s appearance on board the Albatross.
“Well, you see, Colonel,” said Skinner, “we had been ten days out, when one night the second mate, as he was poking about between decks, caught a strange nigger creeping into a cotton-bale just for’ard of the store-room. We ordered the nigger out, and he came into the cabin, and pretended to be a free nigger, and said he’d pay his passage as soon as he could git work in New York. In course I knew he was lyin’, but I didn’t let on that I suspected him. I played smooth; and cuss me, if the nigger didn’t play smooth too; for he made as if he believed me; and so when we got to New London, afore I could git the officers on board, he jumped into the water and swam to old Payson’s boat, and Payson he got him on board one of the Sound steamers, and had him put through to New York that same night. The next day Payson attakted me in the street, knocked me down, and stamped on me, and afore I could have him tuk up, he was on board that infernal boat of his, and off out of sight. There’s the scar of the gash Payson left on my skull.”
Blake, at these words, left the window, and came and looked at the scar with evident satisfaction. Colonel Hyde, with a lordly air of patronage, held out his hand to Skinner, and said: “Capting, the scar is an honor. Capting, yer hand. I love to meet a high-tone gemmleman, and you’re one. Capting, allow me to shake yer hand.”
“With pleasure,” said Biggs, taking the Colonel’s hand and shaking it in his own big, coarsely-seamed flipper, before the Captain had a chance to reach out. The Colonel smiled grimly at Biggs’s playfulness, but said nothing.
“Come! it’s time to go,” exclaimed Iverson, looking at his watch. The party rose, and proceeded down Broadway to Charlton’s office. We have already seen what transpired on their arrival. Our business is now with what happened after their departure.
Three o’clock struck. The small hand on the dial of Trinity was fast moving toward four; and still Blake paced the floor in Charlton’s office. Every now and then there would be a knock at the door, and Blake, with a menacing shake of his head, would impose silence on the conveyancer, till the applicant for admission, tired of knocking, would go away.