“You call me a scoundrel, do you,” said he, levelling a pistol at my head.
“You call us scoundrels, do you,” cried the boy I have made mention of, and who was evidently the son of the captain, taking up another pistol in his hand. “Shall I shoot him, father?”
“No, Peleg, not yet; we will pay them all when we get in. Take him away, and put him in irons with the rest,” said the captain; and I was immediately dragged forward between decks through a door in the bulkheads, where I found the Portuguese captain and three seamen already in irons.
“This is pretty treatment,” said he to me.
“Yes, it is, indeed,” replied I; “but I will make him smart for it when we arrive.”
“Shall we ever arrive?” said the Portuguese captain, looking at me and compressing his lips.
“I say, my man,” said I to the seaman who stood over us with a pistol and a cutlass, “who are you, and what are you? Tell us the truth: are you pirates?”
“I never was yet,” replied he, “nor do I mean to be; but our skipper says that you are, and that he knew you as soon as you came alongside. That’s all I can say about it.”
“Why, if we are pirates, as he says, and he recognises us, he must have been in pirates’ company,—that is clear.”
“Well, he may have been, for all I know,” replied the man. “I don’t consider him any very great things; but he is our captain, and we must obey orders.”