“Well, let’s hear it, then,” replied I.
“No, not unless you promise. I can swing, if need be, as well as father, but I’d rather not, ’cause I know where all his money is hidden.”
“I can’t make any promise,” replied I.
“Then I can’t tell,” replied he, “so I may e’en go on deck and tell father that I cannot manage it;” and as he said the latter part of this speech, the undaunted little villain actually laughed at the idea of gammoning his father, as he termed it.
Train up a child in the way he should go, and he will not depart from it, is mostly true; but it is more certain that if you train a child up in the way that he should not go, he will be a more true disciple. Could there be a more decided proof of the above than the behaviour of this young villain? but his father had made him so, and thus was he rewarded.
“Stop,” said I, for I had reflected whether, after all, there were any grounds for hanging the boy, and come to a conclusion that a jury would have probably acquitted him. “Stop,” said I; “you say that what you can tell is of the greatest consequence.”
“And becomes of more consequence every minute that passes,” replied he. “I will tell you every thing, and let you into father’s secrets. I peach upon father altogether.”
“Well, then,” replied I, “if what you have to disclose proves important, I will do all I can to save your life, and I have no doubt that I shall be able so to do.”
“No more have I,” replied he, “or I would not have come to you. Now then, father came to the back of the island to do a little business with a pirate schooner, as he said just now; and he has very often done it before, as he said just now; but father did not tell you all. When we were in Port Royal, father went to the captain of a king’s vessel who is there, having been sent to put down the pirates if possible, and he offered this captain of the king’s ship, for a certain sum, to put our friends that we exchange with into his hands.”
“What, betray his friend the pirate?”