“Avast there, my lads!” cried the boatswain “why are you meddling with those clothes?”
A shout, with confused answers in Irish, was the incomprehensible reply.
“Conolly,” cried Seymour, “you can speak to them. Ask them what they mean?”
Conolly addressed them in Irish, when an exchange of a few sentences took place.
“Bloody end to the rapparees!” said Conolly, turning to our hero. “It’s helping themselves they’re a’ter, instead of helping us. They say all that comes on shore from a wreck is their own by right, and that they’ll have it. They asked me what was in the cask, and I told them it was the cratur, sure enough, and they say that they must have it, and everything else, and that if we don’t give it up peaceably, they’ll take the lives of us.”
Seymour, who was aware that the surrender of the means of intoxication would probably lead to worse results, turned to his men, who had assembled outside of the hut, and had armed themselves with spars and fragments of the wreck on the first appearance of hostility, and directed them to roll the cask of rum into the hut, and prepare to act on the defensive. The English seamen, indignant at such violation of the laws of hospitality, and at the loss of their clothes, immediately complied with his instructions, and, with their blood boiling, were with difficulty restrained from commencing the attack.
A shaggy-headed monster, apparently the leader of the hostile party, again addressed Conolly in his own language.
“It’s to know whether ye’ll give up the cask quietly, or have a fight for it. The devil a pair of trousers will they give back, not even my own, though I’m an Irishman, and a Galway man to boot. By Jesus, Mr Seymour, it’s to be hoped ye’ll not give up the cratur without a bit of a row.”
“No,” replied Seymour. “Tell them that they shall not have it, and that they shall be punished for the theft they have already committed.”
“You’re to come and take it,” roared Conolly, in Irish, to the opposing party.