"'Lor' bless us, Harry!' faltered out the old sailor, 'ye don't mean it!—sich a young, soft-looked shaver, too!' 'Them smooth-skinned sort o' coves is kimmonly the worst, mate,' replied Harry; 'for that matter ye may be quite sure he's got his chums aboard—an' how does we know but the ship's sold, from stem to starn? There's that 'ere blackavizzed parson, now, and one or two more aft—cuss me if that 'ere feller smells brine for the first time! An' as for this here Bob Jacobs o' yours, blow me if there ain't over many of his kind in the whole larboard watch, Jack! A man-o'-war's-man's al'ays a blackguard out on a man-o'-war, look-ye!' 'Why, bless me, shipmate,' said Jack, lowering his voice, 'by that recknin', a man don't know his friends in this here craft! The sooner we gives the mate a hint the better, to my thinking?' 'No, blow me, no, Jack,' said Harry, 'keep all fast, or ye'll kick up a worse nitty, old boy! Just you hould on till ye see what's to turn up—ownly stand by and look out for squalls, that's all! There's the skipper laid up below in his berth, I hears—and to my notions, that 'ere mate of ours is no more but a blessed soldier, with his navigation an' his head-work, an' be blowed to him: where's he runned the ship, I'd like to know, messmate!' 'Well, strike me lucky if I'm fit to guess!' answered Jack, gloomily. 'No, s'help me Bob, if he knows hisself!' said Harry. 'But here's what I says, anyhow—if so be we heaves in sight of a pirate, or bumps ashore on a ileyand i' the dark, shiver my tawsels if I doesn't have a clip with a handspike at that 'ere soft-sawderin' young blade in the straw hat!' 'Well, my fine fellow,' thought I, 'many thanks to you again, but I certainly shall look out for you!'
"All this time I couldn't exactly conceive whether the sulky rascal really suspected anything of the kind, or whether he wasn't in fact sounding his companion, and perhaps others of the crew, as to how far they would go in case of an opportunity for mischief; especially when I heard him begin to speculate if 'that 'ere proud ould beggar of a naboob, aft yonder, musn't have a sight o' gould and jowels aboard with him! Why, for the matter o' that, mate,' continued he, 'I doesn't signify the twinklin' of a marling-spike, mind ye, what lubberly trick they sarves this here craft, so be ownly ye can get anyhow ashore, when all's done! It's nouther ship-law nor shore-law, look ye, mate, as houlds good on a lonely dazart!' 'Ay, ay, true enough, bo',' said the other, 'but what o' that? there ain't much signs of a dazart, I reckon, in this here blue water!' 'Ho!' replied Harry, rather scornfully, 'that's 'cause you blue-water, long-v'yage chaps isn't up to them, brother. There's you and that 'ere joker in the striped slops, Jack, chaffing away over the side jist now about a current—confounded sharp he thinks hisself, too—but d'ye think Harry Foster ain't got his weather-eye open? For my part, I thinks more of the streak o' haze yonder-away, right across the starboard bow, nor all the currents in——' 'Ay, ay,' said Jack, stretching out again to look, 'the heat, you means?' 'Heat!' exclaimed the ugly topman, 'heat be blowed! Hark ye, mate, it may be a strip o' cloud, no doubt, or the steam over a sand-bank; but so be the calm lasts so long, and you sees that 'ere streak again by sundown with a touch o' yallow in 't——'
"'What—what—shipmate?' asked Jack, breathless with anxiety. 'Then it's the black coast iv Africay, and no mistake,' said Harry. 'And what's more,' continued the fellow, coolly, after taking a couple of short turns, 'if there be's a current, why look ye, it'll set dead in to where the land lays—an' I'm blessed if there's one aboard, breeze or no breeze, as is man enough for to take her out o' the suck of a Africane current.' 'The Lord be with us!' exclaimed the other sailor, in alarm, 'what's to be done, Harry, bo'; when do you mean for to let them know aft?' 'Why, maybe I'm wrong, ye know, old ship,' said Harry, 'an' a man mustn't go for to larn his betters, ye know; by this time half o' the watch has a notion on it, at any rate. There's Dick White, Jack Jones, Jim Sidey, an' a few more Wapping men, means to stick together in case o' accidents; so Jack, man, ye needn't be in sich an a taking. What the' (here he came out with a regular string of top-gallant oaths), 'when you finds a good chance shoved into your fist, none o' your doin', ain't a feller to haul in the slack of it 'cause he's got a tarry paw and ships before the mast? I tell ye what it is, old ship, 'tain't the first time you an' me's been cast away, an' I doesn't care the drawin' of a rope-yarn, in them 'ere latitudes, if I'm cast away again. Hark ye, ould boy: grog to the mast-head, a grab at the passengers' wallibles, when they ha'n't no more use for 'em, in course; and the pick of the ladies, jist for the takin' o' them ashore!'
"'Lord love ye, Harry, belay there!' said Jack; 'what's the good o' talkin' on what ain't like to be?' 'Less like things turn up,' said Harry. 'More by token, if I hasn't pitched upon my fancy lass a'ready; an' who knows, old ship, but you marries a naboob's darter yet, and gets yourself shoved all square, like a riglar hare, into his heestate, as they calls it? For my part, I've more notion of the maid! An' it'll go hard with me if we doesn't manage to haul that 'ere mishynar parson safe ashore on the strength of it.' 'God bless ye, Harry,' answered Jack, somewhat mournfully, 'I'm twice spliced already!' 'Third time's lucky, though,' replied Harry, with a chuckle, as he walked towards the side again and looked over; the rest of the watch being gathered on the other bow, talking and laughing; the passengers beginning to appear on the poop, and the Scotch second mate standing up aft on the taffrail, feeling for a breath of wind. The big topman came slowly back to his companion, and leant himself on the spars again. 'Blowed if I don't think you're right, mate,' said he, 'you and that 'ere lawyer. You'd a'most say there's a ripple round her larboard bow just now, sure enough—like she were broadside on to some drift or another. Hows'ever, that's neither here nor there; for my part, I sets more count by the look o' the sky to east'ard; an' be blowed, shipmate, if that same yonder don't make me think of woods.' 'Well,' said Jack, 'I goes by sunrise, messmate, an' I didn't like it overmuch myself, d' ye see! That 'ere talk o' yours, Harry, consarnin' dazarts and what not—why, bless me, it's all my eye—this bout, at any rate—seein' as how, if we doesn't have a stiff snuffler out o' that very quarter afore twenty-four hours is over, you call me lubber!'
"'Ho, ho! old salt,' chuckled Harry, 'none o' them saws holds good hereaway; if it's the coast of Africay, mate, two watches 'll settle our hash in them longitudes, without going the length o' six! Ha'n't I knocked about the bloody coast of it six weeks at a time, myself, let alone livin' as many months in the woods?—so I knows the breedin' of a turnady a cussed sight too well, not to speak on the way the landblink looms afore you sights it!'
"'Lived in them there woods, did ye?' inquired Jack. 'Ay, bo', an' a rum rig it was too, sure enough,' said Harry; 'the very same time I told you on, i' the Bight o' Benin.' 'My eye,' exclaimed the other, 'a man never knows what he may come to. Let's into the rights of it, Harry, can't ye, afore eight bells strikes?'
"'Woods!' said Harry, 'I b'lieve ye, ould ship. I see'd enough o' woods, that time, arter all—and 'twan't that long agone, either—I'll not say how long, but it wa'n't last v'yage. A sharp, clinker-built craft of a schooner she wor; I'm not goin' to give ye her right name, but they called her the Lubberhater [21] —an' if there wa'n't all sorts on us aboard, it's blaming ye—an' a big double-jinted man-eatin' chap of a Yankee was our skipper, as sly as slush—more by token, he had a wart alongside o' one eye as made him look two ways at ye—Job Price by name—an' arter he'd made his fortin, I heard he's took up a teetotal chapel afloat on the Missishippey. She'd got a strapping long nose, that 'ere schooner, so, my boy, we leaves everything astarn, chase or race, I promise ye; an' as for a blessed ould ten-gun brig what kept a-cruising thereaway, why, we jest got used to her, like, and al'ays lowers our mainsail afore takin' the wind of her, by way o' good-bye, quite perlite. Blowed if it warn't rum, though, for to see the brig's white figger'ed over the swell, rollin' under a cloud o' canvas, stens'ls crowded out alow an' aloft, as she jogged arter us. Then she'd haul her wind an' fire a gun, an' go beating away up in chase of some other craft, as caught the chance for runnin' out whenever they sees the Lubberhater well to sea—why, s' help me Bob, if the traders on the coast didn't pay Job Price half-a-dozen blacks apiece every trip, jist for to play that 'ere dodge. At last, one time, not long after I joined the craft, what does he do but nigh-hand loses her an' her cargo, all owin' to reckonin' over much on this here traverse. Out we comes one night in the tail of a squall, an' as soon as it clears, there sure enough we made out the brig, hard after us, as we thinks—so never a rag more Job claps on, 'cause two of his friends, ye see, was jist outside the bar in the Noon river. Well, very soon the cruiser begins to overhaul us, as one gaff-taups'l wouldn't do, nor yet another, till the flying-jib and bonnets made her walk away from them in right 'arnest—when slap comes a long-shot that that took the fore-topmast out of us in a twinkling. So when the moonlight comed out, lo an' behold, instead o' the brig's two masts stiff and straight against the haze, there was three spanking sticks all ataunto, my boy, in a fine new sloop-o'-war as had fresh come on the station—the Iris, they called her—and a fast ship she wor. But all said and done, the schooner had the heels of her in aught short of a reef-taups'l breeze—though, as for the other two, the sloop-o'-war picked off both on 'em in the end.'
"At this point of the fellow's account, I, Ned Collins, began to prick up my ears, pretty sure it was the dear old Iris he was talking of; and, thought I, 'Oho, my mate, we shall have you directly—listening's all fair with a chap of this breed.'
"'Well,' said he, ''twas the next trip after that, we finds the coast clear, as commonly was—for, d' ye see, they couldn't touch us if so be we hadn't a slave aboard—in fact, we heerd as how the cruiser was up by Serry Lony, and left some young leftenant or other on the watch with a sort o' lateen-rigged tender. A precious raw chap he was, by all accounts—and, sure enough, there he kept plying off and on, in-shore, 'stead of out of sight to seaward till the craft would make a bolt; an' as soon as ye dropped an anchor, he'd send a boat aboard with a reefer, to ax if ye'd got slaves in the hold. In course, ye know, Job Price sends back a message, "palm-ile an' iv'ry, an' gould if we can"—h'ists the Portingee colours, brings up his Portingee papers, and makes the Portingee stoo'rd skipper for the spell—but anyhow, bein' no less nor three slavers in the mouth of the Bonny river at the time, why, he meant to show fight if need be, and jest man-handle the young navy sprig to his heart's content. Hows'ever, the second or third night, all on a suddent we found he'd sheered off for a decency's sake, as it might be, an hour or two afore we'd began to raft off the niggers. Well, mate, right in the midst of it there comes sich a fury of a turnady off the land, as we'd to slip cable and run fair out to sea after the other craft what had got sooner full—one on 'em went ashore in sight, an' we not ninety blacks aboard yet, with barely a day's water stowed in.
"'The next morning, out o' sight of land, we got the sea-breeze, and stood in again under everything, till we made Fernandy Po ileyand, three leagues off, or thereby, an' the two ebony-brigs beating out in company, so the skipper stands over across their course for to give them a hail, heaves to and pulls aboard the nearest, where he stays a good long spell and drinks a stiff glass, as ye may fancy, afore partin'. Back comes Job Price in high glee, and tould the mate as how that mornin' the brigs had fell foul o' the man-o'-war tender, bottom up, an' a big Newfoundling dog a-howlin' on the keel—no doubt she'd turned the turtle in that 'ere squall—more by token, he brought the dog alongst with him in a present. So away we filled again to go in for the Bonny river, when the breeze fell, and shortly arter there we was all three dead becalmed, a couple o' miles betwixt us, sticking on the water like flies on glass, an' as hot, ye know, as blazes—the very moral o' this here. By sundown we hadn't a drop of water, so the skipper sent to the nearest brig for some; but strike me lucky if they'd part with a bucketful for love, bein' out'ard bound. As the Spanish skipper said, 'twas either hard dollars or a stout nigger, and t' other brig said the same. A slight puff o' land-wind we had in the night, though next day 'twas as calm as ever, and the brigs farther off—so by noon, my boy, for two blessed casks, if Job Price hadn't to send six blacks in the boat. Shorter yarn, Jack, but the calm held that night too, and blowed if the brigs would sell another breaker—what we had we couldn't spare to the poor devils under hatches, and the next day, why they died off like rotten sheep, till we hove the last on 'em o'board; and frighterful enough it was, mind ye, for to see about fifty sharks at work all round the schooner at once, as long as it lasted.