“Very well, then,” he said, smiling; “stand. You have some notion in your head, then?”
“Yes, sir,” I said eagerly, for the nervousness all passed away in the excitement I felt. “I thought that if I could do as I liked, I’d take the Teaser up some creek where she couldn’t be watched, and then I’d close all the ports, send the men over the side to paint out the streak, and I’d paint the funnel another colour, and get yards all anyhow, and hide all the guns. I’d make her look like one of the tea-screws, and get a lot of Chinamen on board for sailors.”
I saw that he kept on bowing his head, and I was so excited that I went on.
“No, I know. If you tried to get some Chinese sailors on board, it would be talked about, and perhaps the pirates would get to know, for they must have friends in some of the ports.”
“Then down go some of your baits, my lad.”
“No, sir. I know. You could make Ching—”
“That Chinese interpreter?”
“Yes, sir. Make him do up some of our lads with pigtails made of blackened oakum, and in duck-frocks they’d do at a distance.”
“Heads not shaven?”
“No, sir; but they could have their hair cut very short, and then painted white—I mean yellow, so that the pirates wouldn’t know at a distance.”