I was curious to count the numbers qualified for the front rank; there were only two mulattoes. In the second rank there were also only two. No shoe and no ’tocking appeared to be the fashion. As usual, we were surrounded by the negroes; and although we had been there but a few hours, they had a song composed for us, which they constantly repeated:
“Don’t you see the Rattlesnake
Coming under sail?
Don’t you see the Rattlesnake
With prizes at um tail?—
Rattlesnake hab all the money, ding ding—
She shall hab all that’s funny, ding, ding!”
Chapter Forty Four.
Money can purchase anything in the new country—American information not always to be depended upon—A night attack; we are beaten off—It proves a “cut up,” instead of a “cut out”—After all, we save something out of the fire.
The next morning we weighed anchor, and returned to our station off Martinique. We had run within three miles of St. Pierre’s, when we discovered a vessel coming out under jury-masts. She steered directly for us, and we made her out to be the American brigantine which we had boarded some time before. O’Brien sent a boat to bring the master of her on board.
“Well, captain,” said he, “so you met with a squall?”
“I calculate not,” replied he.
“Why, then, what the devil have you been about?”